Fate of Awakening Love
by xXxJazzy B. RealxXx
Summary: A collection of aimless episodes revolving around Inuyasha and Kagome's experiences with one another. Latest addition, "Loves Me Not".
1. A Constellation of Conversation

_**"Fate of Awakening Love"**_

_**Disclaimer:**__ 'Ello there! This is my first Inuyasha story, so don't hit me too hard if it's not how you like it. I really hope to get some reviews, too. This fanfiction is not a whole story in itself. It's a story containing many 'drabbles' of Inuyasha and Kagome moments that sprung up in my mind one night. So it ain't got a real plot, to be honest, it's just like a story of random episodes. You can also openly give me ideas for Kagome and Inuyasha moments to write out, if you'd like! So if you want me to make your imaginative dream or wish a chapter, just tell me in a review! Because daggone it, there really isn't enough romantic moments between these two to me! So enjoy this first chapter!_

**Chapter One: **_**"A Constellation of Conversation"**_

_**Chapter Summary**_ - _Inuyasha leaks out the truth of his thoughts about Kagome on one boring night of his transformation in her bedroom. He said before that in his human form his emotions were more controlling._

_Next chapter may be focused on 'Mother's Day', a chapter of Inuyasha opening up to Kagome about his past and retelling heartbreaking events with his mother. Either that, or this HojoxKagomexInuyasha dilemma. This story section will have MANY chapters! Please review, and don't be shy! It's the only thing that'll let me know I'm writing for a reason._

--

"Inu...yasha?"

In contrast to the syrupy, worrisome voice came a snippy, "_What_?"

"Why do you want to become a full demon?" The black-haired Kagome squeezed her lean legs to her breasts, rocking somewhat to herself atop the mattress. In her baby blue pajamas, she felt too unnerved with trembling notions to lay her head down. Especially with Inuyasha here. She nonetheless discovered herself mentally grinning in memory of how Inuyasha invited himself here late in the night.

_**"I just...wanted to tell you that you're coming back to the well tomorrow, whether you like it or not."**__ Perched on the windowsill of Kagome's bedroom, Inuyasha strained for excuses as he scanned her smiling face with irritation, obviously flustered and flushed. __**"You got a problem with that?!" **_

_Kagome could only make this cute noise that was a cross between a sigh and a snort. _

_**"...Hey, you're not planning to go out with that kid Hobo tomorrow, are ya'? The jewel shards are more important than some boy from your stupid SCHOOL." **_

_**"His name's HOJO, Ho-jo, not Hobo." **__Kagome wagged her finger about._

_Inuyasha aimed a dramatically accusing finger at her. __**"AHA! So you DO like him! I KNEW it! How many guys are you gonna let sweep you off your feet, Kago--" **_

_**"I'm NOT seeing HOJO! Why do you always have to be so jeal..." **__Kagome found herself quickly recovered from her rising temper to see Inuyasha now standing before her bedside._

_Her eyes ran over his bare feet that had been bruised from soil, probably for when he speeded here. Kagome studied the bagginess of his red pants that flooded above his ankles, the broad, flat torso concealed behind the Fire Rat haori, and then that's when she realized his transformation. His sunbird eyes were jade and his hair was no longer a silvery white. His glare remained the same, however, but since the moon's light was the only shine illuminating the room it seemed to have fallen in love with Inuyasha's features. It wanted to persuade Kagome to, also. His now jet black mane shone with glaciers of white slivers of light from the moon's bathe and his aura glowed with enchantment as he stood in his dominant posture. _

_Kagome blinked once, twice, no, three times at the arresting photograph that was very much alive in front of her eyes. Unconsciously, her slender fingers caressed her pulsating heart to quiet it, for it was screaming. When was it that he looked this beautiful? Oh, that's right - Always. _

_**"I ain't JEALOUS, I'm just--Hey, why are you staring at me like that? Q-Quit it! You're giving me the creeps!" **_

_...Now if only she could just mute out that voice of his._

Inuyasha's curt tone split her thoughts in half.

"Didn't we go THROUGH this already?" The half-demon, residing in Kagome's era for the night of his human transformation, only grunted.

Kagome said nothing. She only gazed into the naked air of her room, splinters of light waltzing like ghostly sillhouettes against her chocolate-coated eyes.

Inuyasha peeked at her through one jade-colored eye, lips puckered in a faint pout of curiosity.

She looked...

So troubled.

_'Damn it.' _Taking coy consideration of this, Inuyasha closed both eyes and responded through a lower vocal of voice, "Well what do _you_ think?"

"I think it's because you're tired of being split down between the two, human and demon. You don't know where you belong or who you are, or how people see you. You're sick of the confusion. Am I right?"

The half-demon gritted his teeth. Her sugary, innocent voice had its affects on him, but in this moment it irked him. "I don't give a DAMN how the world thinks of me. They can all go to hell."

"Then it's Sesshormaru, right? To overpower him--"

"Look, just DROP it." Inuyasha turned on his side and away from her to lean his cheek into his palm doggedly, luscious black mane swaying. "You'd never understand, even if I told you. So just drop it."

Kagome stared at his back. The lengthy strands of his glistening hair rested elegantly in unending swirls that traced paths in the pleated wrinkles of the bedspread. Surprisingly, she didn't feel anger at his back this time. She felt sympathy, for she remembered that it was always his back that protected her. Right now, she wanted to imagine what he was feeling.

Inuyasha's thick black eyebrow twitched, lips tight. _'What the hell's up with her lately? All day she's reeked of sadness.'_ --And it was annoying the hell out of him that he couldn't congregate the courage to ask her why without it ending in a fight.

Kagome sighed and continued to glimpse at him through the crook of her tendered eyes. She loved him as a half-demon. She loved him as Inuyasha, no matter how much of a selfish hot head he could be. But God did he look gorgeous as a mere human. He was always beautiful, but she was sure her friends would gawk at the mortal sight of him.

"...You should, " Kagome nibbled on the dead skin to her bottom lip. "Use the Sacred Jewel to become full h...human."

Inuyasha had sworn to have felt a frosty chill crawl up his spinal cord. It was oddly pleasuring, too. Yet instead of responding, all he could think about was if his human hearing was as weak as he predicted.

"That way, you wouldn't have to worry about demons, the jewel or fighting for your survival. You could finally be at peace. You could live a new life...with me." Kagome swallowed awfully hard, but she played it off nonetheless.

Nope, he heard right.

Inuyasha's lips remained parted, a glossy glint to them from the reflection of the moon's shine. The gravity and oxygen had changed. He recalled the vague picture of sitting on that grassy place with Kikyo and all the thing she said, running through his head. It was all the same.

"You could even save a number of lives, you know! With the jewel gone, everyone would be safer." Kagome felt encouraged by her own voice because at first she sounded selfish, but now she had thrown in another good point.

Abruptly, Inuyasha sat up. Kagome jolted at the startle. She stared wonderingly at his shadowed face, unable to read his expression.

"Inuyasha?" she murmured unsurely.

"I'm sorry...Kagome." His tone was sincere. Automatically, that meant 'uh-oh' for Kagome. "But I can't do that. Kikyo asked me to do the same thing. The more I spend time with you, the more time is looking like fifty years ago and there's no way on earth, heaven or hell I'd dare to repeat the past."

He just had to put Kikyo's name in it.

Kagome's heart collapsed into the pits of her stomach. Her eyes were suddenly stinging with moistness. "...Inuyasha".

"Don't 'Inuyasha' me, Kagome." He elevated his face, revealing the eyes of his jaded soul to her from beneath the veiling of black bangs.

She felt fear of what he would say next; his eyes were just too glittery with enlightenment, they weren't sparkling with half-demon Inuyasha. That's what made her quiver.

"Listen, I know...I know you're tired of me relating everything to you and Kikyo, but I'm responsible for what happened to her."

Kagome cringed, yet tried to act stronger. "No, you're not! Naraku's the one--"

"I'M the one who wasn't there to protect her! Got that?"

She retreated back in a crounched posture, stressed between regret and shame. He was taking her for granted again, wasn't he?

But then...

Inuyasha's eyes became affectionate. "Kagome...I love..._loved_, Kikyo, but I came to realize that I'm not IN love with her. I get this bothers you all the time, so no I DON'T see Kikyo when I look at you. I mean at first it was like that, but now it's different. Kikyo is Kikyo. Kagome is Kagome. You're similiar, but not the same. Your eyes are more energetic and lively than Kikyo's. Your smiles are full of the bright side of what life has to offer. Your personality is sometimes more than I can handle. You're the exact opposite of her. You show all your human emotions...some for me. YOU'RE what keeps me from transforming. You keep me alive. Kagome, that's why I need you by my side. You showed me _how_ to be and that I _can_ be me...and that it's okay. You showed me a different type of happiness that Kikyo didn't."

_'Is this...real?'_ Kagome's face was burning and her head was light. Soon enough, she was sure to faint from nausea, since this was the first time he's ever been so open and confident. Was Inuyasha finally growing up from an immature pup?

Inuyasha turned his sad gaze from her and rested his short eyelashes on his cheeks, facial muscles wrinkled with frustration. "Kagome, I can't be with you like I wanted to be with Kikyo. Who knows what'll happen. I'd hate to see another woman die because of me. The last time I tried to become human to live my life, all hell let loose."

After staring for so long at her half-demon, Kagome smiled. A teary one. "I...understand," she nodded. "I can't change your mind, I guess."

Inuyasha slightly pried his eyes open, still looking into his lap before plunking down into her bed on his back.

Silence had befallen.

She longed to touch him. Feel the silky sleekness of his scenic hair, feel the gentle and boldness of his arms around her, and feel the soft smoothness of his skin. But she couldn't.

Inuyasha then took it upon himseslf to burst the bubble of quietness with something bold. "Besides, didn't you tell me...'I love you as a half-demon, Inuyasha'?" His nose wiggled.

Kagome's heart skipped a dangerous beat as she struggled to regain herself. Nearly choking on her own breath, she glanced at him bashfully. "S-So you remember, huh?"

"Keh. How could I forget?" His lips remained upside down with his eyes shut.

"This is the first time we've talked like this. All this time I thought you forgot about all those 'moments'."

"Always been in the back of my mind day in and day out." Inuyasha felt impatiently stifled by the silence overwhelming them both. "...Didja mean it?"

Kagome snapped her head to him. She blinked; long eyelashes fluttering with shyness and confusion. "Of course I--"

"The half-demon part, not the rest. Do you still want to be with me as a half-demon?" His voice twanged with harsh directness, like it had been on his mind forever.

"...Of course, Inuyasha." Kagome's eyes glistened like polished hersey bars.

"Then why did you say what Kikyo said? I know now she wanted to kill a part of me - the part that I was born with."

"But so do you, Inuyasha. You want to become a full fledged demon."

Inuyasha grumbled out, "Just answer the QUESTION, Kagome."

Kagome sighed out, "Inuyasha, I only said that because it would stop all the violence."

Pause.

"...Why can't you just live with me in my era?"

Kagome gulped at his words. Her fingers were accompanying her bosom again. Oh Lord, it felt as if her heart would rupture out of her ribcage like a caged eagle starving for freedom.

"I-I mean, with me as in us...as in Sango, M-Miroku, Shippou..." He flushed childlishly. He just couldn't give up his denial barrier, could he?

"I don't know if I can." Kagome admitted, playing with her fingers timorously. He ruined it for her with that last add-on. He was still holding onto his immaturity.

Inuyasha scratched his black scalp. "Ah." Normally he'd protest against her, but for once, he honestly knew she was lying.

"Anyway, we'd better get some sleep Inuyasha. I have school tomorrow." Kagome breathed as she crawled under the covers. "Goodnight."

"Yeah...G'night." His eyelids flattened.

However, she wasn't going to bed just yet. Her pajamas were sticking damply to her flesh from sweating through the conversation, heart pounding with agonizing excitement. She reflected on his words over and over like a broken record.

"Hey, Inuyasha?" she hummed, the owner of that name barely being able to hear it.

"What now?" He folded his arms and sat criss-crossed, mildly peering at her over the hill of his shoulder.

"Sorry for all the times I commanded you to sit."

"BLAH!"

A sudden crash followed after that yelp. Kagome's bedroom rattled as if a three-second earth quake had erupted. She gasped and clamped her hands over her mouth to see Inuyasha's face implanted in the carpet of her flooring. "Inuyasha, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to!"

"Oh yeah like THAT makes my face feel any BETTER." He jolted back up, his nose looking a bit dented with a sheet of red painted over his face to define the lingering pain. He clenched his teeth and fist in unison, growling whilst straining to calm his temper. "Just what._ EVER._"

"But l-like that for instance, I'm sorry for always using my authority over you just because I was having a little tantrum." She poked her fingers together, feeling guiltier.

"More like careless and stupid, Stupid." Inuyasha bickered.

Kagome's forgiving attitude transformed into her own demon. "What did you SAAAY?!"

"You heard me! Hmph." The half-demon merely closed his eyes. After a minute of ignoring Kagome's seething, he spoke gingerly, "Don't apologize. I didn't linger on my temper when you did it. It was the only way you could trust me, right Kagome?"

Kagome jerked a tad. A flaming blush streaked upon her already rosy cheeks. On top of that, he used her name.

"It was the only way you could guarantee I wouldn't hurt you. I've still got a demon in me, after all. Even now, I'm sure you're still weary of what I'm capable of."

"S-So...you never hated me for it?"

"Teh, don't be STUPID." He scolded, not fazing her mood however. "I'm smart enough to have figured out a way to make you take them offa me, don't you think?"

"So then...you never wanted them off, because you knew I'd be afraid of you. And you don't want me to be afraid of you. You wanted me to get to know you so you could get to know me."

"Daaaah!" Inuyasha suddenly panicked when he felt the wave of shyness and denial sweep over him. He braced his first and snarled up at her, "You don't have to say it all MUSHY and stuff! S-So don't go getting any funny ideas!"

Kagome only giggled between the blankets.

Inuyasha bent over her, eyes buggy and annoyed. "Kagome, I'm SERIOUS! I'm not tryna say--U-Uhhh..."

"Don't be so defensive! No one's here but me and you, so it's okay." She had her finger compelled to his lips. "Kay?"

"...K...Kay." Inuyasha dragged out, heavily red and overheated. He watched her withdraw as so did he once easing the muscles in his face and fist while he examined the cherry Kagome. _'...I just didn't want to lose the one thing that doesn't think I'm some type of monster.' _

"What about Koga?"

"K...Koga?" The half-breed blinked, dumbfounded lips sunken into a childlike 'o'.

"Why'd you always get so jealous when he came around? You know I didn't have any feelings for him. Just care and friendship."

The human verison of Inuyasha had his undivided attention to the crinkles of Kagome's carpet, flakes of cherry-red rowed along his cheek through the profile of his face. The slivers of black strands became in the way of his vision the lower his head bowed. "...I just...didn't want him to grow on you. I don't trust any man who has interest in you, Kagome. It's not you I don't trust, it's those bastards. Besides, I didn't want you to forget..." the words got tangled in the canal of his parched throat.

Kagome cocked her head and sat up on her elbow, sweat dropping when he faced his side to her and crossed his arms stubbornly.

"Argh, I didn't want you to forget about me and the sh-shards, okay?! End of story!" He blushed, flustered by himself. He just couldn't contain a straight face in this time, either. So much was leaking, he felt like he needed to run and find something to patch it up.

What scared him most was that Kagome had this dreamy smile super-glued to her delighted face. "Oh Inuyasha!"

He could feel the vibration of the rumbling in his bosom as he slouched, scorching tempatures threatening to blaze through the outer skin of his cheeks. "Oh shut up..."

"Thanks, Inuyasha." As if possessed by the enchanting spell of her heart, Kagome's weight bent into Inuyasha's, her hair locks dancing in the slow-motion of the winds.

Inuyasha barely had even a second to loiter on the reality of Kagome's breath kissing his full-flesh face.

"H-Huh...?" The half-breed blinked in utter stun to be confronted wiht the comforting warmth of Kagome's silky lips to his clammy cheek.

When she retracted, a neon pink lined her face in sudden awareness of what her heart bewitched her to do. Regardlessly smiling, she drew back into the sheets of her bed, her head singing a soulful tone. "Thanks...for opening up to me."

Inuyasha's protruding eyes journeyed to Kagome. For some reason, she looked different. She didn't look like Kikyo or Kagome. What was that look in her brown eyes? Or was it the feverish heat that had finally gotten to his head that played hoaxes on him? Inuyasha alternated his head to her at the slightest just so he could observe her directly. The soften of his lids and shrink of his lips urged as a burden on Kagome, for now there was no way she could grasp sleep knowing she was on the handsome Inuyasha's mind.

"...Mmph," With that single emanation, Inuyasha rotated his concentration elsewhere. He, however, left behind the vidence of red tinges to his victimized cheeks. "Just go t'sleep. You've got that stupid test thing tomorrow, right?"

"Right." Kagome nuzzled into her arm sweetly, dozing off with the image of her half-demon soiled in her dreams.

Inuyasha's chest deflated with an inwardly hassled sigh. His lips loosened from agitation as he tilted into Kagome's ear drum, black hairs falling over her sealed shut eyelashes. His breath winded into the pipe of her ear.

"...Kagome..." Inuyasha struggled, face steaming with hotness. "I...I love you as...a Kagome, not a Kikyo. Understand?" With all his courageousness, he budged his lips to the curl of her cute ear, just to find himself frozen. _'...No.' _Instead, the bold half-breed indented a three-second kiss into the corner of her mouth. "And I'll protect you with my life." Drawing back from her tasty flesh, he fluttered his eyes open to stare down on her glowing form for what seemed eternity, until...

"Wait..." The flush crept back on his face. "What the hell did I just do?! ARGH!" He held his head in franticness. "Stupid human EMOTIONS!!"

Next time he'd remember that it was most dangerous to be near Kagome in his human form rather than to be near his enemies.


	2. InuYasha's Fields of Innocence

**_"InuYasha's Fields of Innocence"_**

**Disclaimer: **_Thanks for all those nice reviews! I see a bunch of familiar faces, too! I'm always glad to know what people feel about my writings, whether critquing, complimenting or giving me ideas, at least you're giving me assurance you're reading it, ehe. After all, I'm a new Inu-fan so I'm scared to screw up. Yeees I said neeeew because the times it was most popular I was engaged with Fullmetal Alchemist. _

**_Chapter Summary: _**_He didn't want mother to see him like this. It wasn't too long ago after he underwent his previous demonic transformations, and he was too ashamed to pay his visits to his mother's grave on Kagome's so-called 'Mother's Day'. Buuut Kagome was a very 'convincing' person, so...the hell with it. _

**_(Song Used - "Fields of Innocence" by Evanescence")_**

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

All afternoon.

Yes, it had been just that.

His eyes were like twin-suns smoldering into the heavens that gazed right back down on him, all afternoon. With his hands hidden into the sleeves of his Fire Rat _Hitoe _and his facial muscles expressing thoughtfulness and...reminiscence, all afternoon.

Inuyasha lifted his naked palms to his view, head rocking from right to left to imply that he was studying the fleshy web of them. He remembered them being smaller, when his claws were barely barbed and used to cling to someone dearest instead of slaying demons.

His Fire Rat. He tugged at its red fabrication. He remembered it being a smaller size on him, when his shoulders hadn't broadened yet and it wasn't needed for protection against demons, but protection against the village's winters.

He then hauled his sight back to the desolate sky. Damn, he remembered the skies being a bigger sea of brighter indigo, when he saw butterflies scatter across it like winged-sakuras instead of blackened blood.

_/I..._

_Still_

_Re-member_

_The world_

_From the_

_Eyes_

_Of a child.../_

The wind rustled up underneath the untamed thickness of his slivery mane and the sleeves of his _Hitoe_. The half-demon clenched his fists as if he was gripping air, tightening and tightening like that mere air would slip away for it was victim to being held hostage. His fangs gritted through the corners of his lips, nearly slitting skin. He recalled those being smaller too when he was teething on a motherly thumb.

_'Mother_', was the only name haloing through Inuyasha's mind-frame. Not Kikyo, not Kagome, not Naraku, not Sesshomaru and certainly not the Shikon Jewel shards.

_/Slow-ly those_

_Feel-ings were_

_Cloud-ed by_

_What..._

_I know now/_

But he had to admit, this was Kagome's doing, and he damned her for it:

_(Flashback)_

_"Mother's wha-wha?" Inuyasha fingered his ear drum lazily, an expression of haunting and exaggerated boredom leched to his face as he half-paid his attentions to Kagome's blabber. _

_"Mother's DAY!" The reincarnated-priestess clasped her hands in a giggly manner. "You know, a special day for mothers! We celebrate it once a year in my era! Don't you? You're supposed to give your mother a gift from your heart." _

_"Keh," Inuyasha yawned broadly and closed his eyes while leaning his back into the comforting bark of the Sacred Tree's trunk. The branch seemed to cradle him. "Never heard of it.--D-Dah..." He was frozen with the flinch of his shoulders in spite of her sudden, "OHHH, I KNOW!" _

_Quiveringly, he rotated his head to angle down on the exhilarated Kagome, lip twitching. "Ka...gome? P-Please tell me you're just having a day dream about sugar, spice and e-everything nice?" By with that starry-eyed glaze to her face, he knew then and there she had a boiling plan in mind that would involve him being dragged along. _

_"Oh Inu-yaaaasha," Kagome chimed as if she were in her school's choir. This only earned another terrified shiver to spark up the half-demon's spinal cord and frizz his silver mane for a split second of illustrated fear. _

_"Y...Y-Yeah?" His voice crackled in mid-'yeah'. _

_"How abooout we go to Kaede's village and make a gift for your mother?" she beamed._

_It had been expectant of Inuyasha to screech out a girlish, 'WHAT?!' in the face of Kagome's innocent smile, but that immaturity wasn't what he responded with. No, he responded with sensitivity waddling in the pits of his stomach. _

_"Stupid wench, and have you forgotten that my mother's DEAD?" Inuyasha hissed like Koga's wolf pack combined as he gripped the handle of Tetsusagia. Try as he might, he could not shelter the evident emotions that interweaved with his words. He sounded venomous and vulnerable all in one turn._

_(End of Flashback)_

In the end of that scene, Kagome returned to Kaede's village to carry out her plans without him.

Inuyasha just 'hmph'-ed in memory.

There was no point in visiting his mother's grave site. That would bring back hardship he couldn't bare to burden himself with. No way in hell would he even return to her like this, lost within himself after the past few weeks of ongoing demonic transformations. The stench of human blood still remained soiled in the pores of his hands, something his mother would never approve of, dead or alive. He would not visit her with his heart fighting a beat of confusion and distortion. If only mother knew what the world had done to him this time, she'd turn away in weeping shame.

...Inuyasha inhaled the scent of the world that echoed around him. He could feel a childlike piece of himself longing to travel back to his fields of innocence.

_/Where_

_Has_

_My heart_

_Gone?_

_An uneven trade for the_

_Real world_

_Oh I, I want to go back to_

_Believing in everything _

_And knowing nothing at all/_/

"Inuyasha!"

"Keh?" Inuyasha shifted his body, whirling his head around to come eye to eye with the fifteen year old girl that stood beneath his personal branch. Red splashed over his face in a massive tidal wave of fluster in recognition of simply witnessing her casual smile. He narrowed his eyes and growled to cover it, "Damn it, Kagome, what is it NOW? I thought I told you not to bother me when I'm--...Huh?" The half-demon cocked his head and brow. "What's all that stuff?"

"Oh, this?" Kagome raised the basket of Jasmines, Sun Flowers and packaged gifts, as if silently bragging about it. "It's the gifts! I told you I was gonna make something for Izaoyi, didn't I?"

"What did I tell you about that, Kagome? You're so damn simple-minded!" Inuyasha's fangs were bared and his pupils were slit eclipses. "I'm NOT revisiting my mother's grave!"

"Inuyasha!" Kagome bickered, but paused her voice on his name like she were going to command that legendary word to rise. The assumption even caused Inuyasha to retaliate his dominant anger in fright.

But instead, Kagome went on, "At least have some honor, will you? Stop thinking about yourself for once and cherish Mother's Day at least this ONCE. It can't be all that bad! Pay her some respect on this day! It's special to her and every other mother!" When he remained speechless to her temper, she slanted her hip and pounded her foot into the ground repeatedly. "Come on, Inuyasha! Time to go!"

"MAKE me!" Inuyasha strapped his arms across his chest, huffing out a challenging breath. "I DARE ya' to MAKE me."

A smug smirk waltzed up to Kagome's cheeky face. "Inu-yaaaas-haaa..."

"...OH C'MON, GIMME A BREAK!"

"**_SIT_** BOY!"

Thump.

"ARGH!! DAMN YOU, KAGOME!"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The closer they reached, the more Inuyasha lagged behind. He felt aniexty stream through the artery of his heart and poison his bloodstream. The burial site of his mother was buried deep in the interior of an enchanted golden forest. However, the forest looked palely grey now. It...was cold, as well as the sun's bathing rays. Inuyasha's attentive eyes looked to the trees' praying branches that stretched to the skies and longed for the reason why the sun was so cold. The day he buried her, it was warm in between the smothering atmosphere, but now...

_/I..._

_Still_

_Re-mem-ber_

_The sun always warm_

_On my back_

_Some-how it seems_

_Colder now.../_

When they finally stumbled into their destination, Inuyasha took an uneasy step before the grave, where Jasmines grew wildly and tangled as if protecting the burial with their delicate lives. His sunbird eyes shone with an embellished yet waning light as memories throbbed against his skull. He looked full of chagrin and nothing more.

"Hmm," Kagome unleashed a confident hum that woke him from his own mind as she kneeled and carefully set the basket at the head of the grave. "Myoga said your mother was an enchanting beauty, Inuyasha." Kagome raised her humanitarian eyes to his, holding all gentleness within them.

Inuyasha blinked lightly, face not hardened for once. He was confused as to why he couldn't smell the stench of pity on her, but instead the aroma of benevolent kindness. _'Leave it to Kagome to show compassion in a situation.'_ His lips twitched, for a smile had strained to tug at the quirk of his mouth, but he forced it back.

"Yeah," Inuyasha answered nonchalantly.

...Birds chirped.

"Um, Inu...yasha? Isn't there anything you want to say to your mother? It is Mother's Day."

Inuyasha snorted out an ignorant breath from his lungs, "What's there to say? It's not like she can HEAR me; she's ten feet below the surface!"

Kagome's vein popped.

Her impatience shown the moment she puffed up her cheeks, "Inuyasha, can't you at least have a heart for five MINUTES for your own birth-mother? You haven't said anything the whole trip!"

Inuyasha's fang showed through the crook of his mouth in a quavering frustration. _'I almost don't even have one anymore, Kagome. You know that better than anyone else.' _

_/Where has my heart gone?_

_Trapped in the eyes of a_

_Stranger/_

_'Mom,'_ Inuyasha closed his eyes for a moment in contemplation. '_I'm sorry for not exactly growing up to be what you wanted me to be...'_

_/Oh, I_

_I want to go back to_

_Believing in everything/_

When Kagome's lips divided to release a nagging voice, it was swallowed back in her throat when her eyes told her Inuyasha was bending down beside her finally. She analyzed his every movement. He outreached the clawed tips of his fingers, and at first Kagome believed it was a gesture of longing. That was quickly brushed aside when she realized he was only picking a Jasmine from the clayed soil.

"...I used to come to this forest all the time with her." Inuyasha spoke barely above a whisper, but it came hoarse through his somewhat gruff voice.

Kagome simply blinked.

"We used to come here to get away from the villagers sometimes." He averted his sentimental eyes to the gold-tinged atmosphere again, eyes half-lidded. "She told me this forest had a protective spell over it, that evil couldn't pass through here. Whether human or demon. Keh, I remember when she always told me that I wasn't human or demon." A humorous smile fought with his lips again. "I was like, 'Ahhh ma', I know THAT, don't cha' think?'" He repeated laughingly. "But then she said, 'Let me finish, Inuyasha', and told me I wasn't a half-demon either. Now that left me REALLY jumbled up. She told me maybe I knew what I was, but I had yet to find WHO I was. And she's totally right about that..."

Kagome had a watery smile that had her rosy cheeks perked up on her face. He was...opening up to her.

"...Look at me now, Kagome." Inuyasha's weary eyes directed to hers underneath his untamed bangs and locked hard. It was piercingly depressing, at that. "What am I to you?"

Kagome blinked, a blush lingering on her face. Never had Inuyasha looked at her so directly, unless there was truly something crucial on his mind. "You're not a monster, if that's what you mean. You're...Inuyasha. You're you and that's all that matters. That's what your mother was trying to say." _'You're my Inuyasha...--Wait, what did I just say er...think?! Get a hold of yourself, girl! You're zoning out!'_

"Wrong." He rumbled aggressively, though not towards her. "Every time I transform, I'm losing a piece of myself, Kagome. I've forced out this parasitic demon in me, and I can't even control it. And I thought NARAKU was a murdress bastard...just look at ME!" His growls were rising. He became disgusted as he raised his 'paws' to his line of sight again, seeing only a monster carrying the hobby of murder in their hands.

_/As the years pass by_

_Before my face_

_As wars rage before me_

_Finding myself in these last days_

_Of my existence_

_This parasite inside me,_

_I forced it out_

_And in the darkness of the storm_

_Lies an evil_

_But it's me.../_

"Inu-YASHA." Kagome stamped her palms down on the loam of the earth, eyebrows compressed inwards. "Don't you DARE compare yourself with Naraku! You're NOTHING like him and you'll never be! What happened back then wasn't your fault; you were unconscious while it was going on. You didn't do anything to trigger it other than being on the brink of death all those times!"

Inuyasha's baffled eyes glistened with stun at Kagome's bold confrontation. But in the end, he simply lowered his head and turned his frustrated stare elsewhere in rejection to heed her words.

_/Where_

_Has_

_My heart_

_Gone?_

_Trapped in the eyes of a_

_Stranger_

_An uneven trade for the_

_Real world.../_

"Wha-HEY!" he yipped in pain as she tugged his side-lock to lug his face to her infuriation-smudged one. They were so close, their noses could've kissed. "K-Kagome--"

"DON'T you 'Kagome', me! Stop sulking, Inuyasha! You're nothing like Naraku! You have a HEART, you've formed new FRIENDS, a-and you've protected me..." Kagome's oak-tree irises were sparkling with the twinkle of crystallite tears that blurred the silvery white and red colors in front of her.

Inuyasha was almost convinced that she unknowingly carried shards of the Shikon Jewel in her tears because they had glown so radiantly. However, those sacred tears that shimmered like the Shikon Jewel Shards never plummetted.

Kagome leaned closer, causing him to rock back to keep his distance. Too close. She was too close. "Listen, I understand how you feel, I really do, but don't down yourself! You're a good person, Inuyasha. As long as you can smile, you'll always be a good person. And me, Sango, Miroku and Shippou are here for you, no matter what. Haven't we always?"

Inuyasha allowed an awestruck sound of bewilderment to escape his throat. His ears were aiming erectly at Kagome as he ignored all other sounds that penetrated around them. His ears soon drooped as his eyelids eased in the process. "Kagome..." He said her name like it was his most prized religion.

Kagome had absolutely loved the way he pronounced it, too. She smiled into his eyes ultimately. "Okay...?"

Inuyasha just gulped.

_/Oh I,_

_I want to go back to_

_Believing in_

_Everything.../_

"And remember, Inuyasha. You want the jewel to become a full fledged demon, don't you? Remember what you looked and acted like the last few times you transformed. You'd be nothing more than a murdress demon. And Izaoyi wouldn't want that."

Inuyasha flinched, but only a tad as he tried to stiffen up.

_/Oh where,_

_Where has my heart gone?_

_Oh I,_

_I want to go back to_

_Believing in everything_

_And knowing nothing at all.../_

"...Please think this through, and consider other beings than just yourself. You've got something new now - friends who love you just the way you are." When Kagome could only hear the silence in his response, she just nodded and let go of his glittering hair lock. "You'll make the right choice, Inuyasha. I know you will." _'Then again, I'm not really all that sure as to how he feels about all of us...or about me.' _

The half-demon examined her a bit longer before examining his claws for the third time today. His nostrils flared as he also took in the scent of her dwelling worry, heart ache and...love? His eyes widened.

"Inuyasha?"

He peeked at her from the underbrush of his bangs.

"...How did your mother die? --I-If it's alright with you to talk about. I mean, we don't have to talk about it if you don't w-want--"

"Villagers." He explained frankly as he raised his knee to support his elbow with. "They attacked us, but I survived. After all, I wasn't around at that time. They got her when I was out hunting. Cowardly bastards." He was fisting the material of his pants leg. "And when I came back, there she was..._dead_." He had tried so badly to sound as if he didn't care that he put more pain on the strain of the word, 'dead'. "Blood was everywhere. That was the first time I discovered what helpless hate felt like. When they came back lookin' for me, I was gone without a trace. My mother always told me to never kill humans, no matter what they did to me. She said it didn't weigh an equal price, just showed I was just like them. So I ran, trying to fight my rage instead of them."

"I'm...so sorry, Inuyasha." By the tremulous vocal of Kagome's tightening voice, Inuyasha knew it was out of sincerity instead of sympathy.

"Don't. You aren't the one who did it, so don't say you're 'sorry'. Everything happens for a reason." He stood from his position in a heaved out sigh. "C'mon, Kagome. Kaede and the others are probably waitin' for us."

_/Oh I,_

_I want to _

_Go back to..._

_Believing in_

_Everything.../_

Kagome lifted to her feet momentarily, but not as immediate. She stared into the rectangular structure of his back until she was watching the muscles in the beautiful profile of his face. Oh, he was in deep thought again. She could feel it. She could feel the heavy thud in her chest.

"Thank you for sharing all this with me, Inuyasha. I really, really appreciate it when you talk to me like this..." Kagome's smile dazzled almost as much as her eyes with the reflection of the honeyed light sapping into her features.

Inuyasha's unblinking eye watched through the slow processing of hot red blood surfacing to his skin before he 'Keh'd and turned back to the path. "W-Well you're the one that FORCED me here anyway..."

"Oh Inuyasha, you can be so sweet sometimes." Kagome flattered, really only adding onto the sugariness of the event to annoy him further.

"O-Oh shaddup and start walkin',_ human_." He seethed through his embarrassment.

Kagome all but found it funny that she was the one that began walking ahead instead of him. She hummed a little tune to herself as happiness flooded into her seams, while Inuyasha took one last glance back at the grave of Izaoyi.

"Hm," he set his jaw tight as the night of her death unfolded in the flames of his mind once more. _'...So long to you too, Mother. Kagome's a lot like you in some ways.' _A weak smile transferred to his paled face as he imagined the ghostly spirit of his mother smiling in elation upon him.

"Come on, Inuyasha!"

"U-Uh...coming." Hesitantly after another glimpse, he caught up to Kagome, eyes forever sealed to the chorusing forest and the skipping priestess. "Hmph," he smirked confidently.

With Kagome near, the sky was still as big and as indigo-blue as it was when his mother held his little hands.

With Kagome near, he'd always remember the world...

...When it was smiling, not frowning.

_/I..._

_Still..._

_Re-mem-ber_

_The world/_


	3. Best For Her

**_"Best For Her" _**

_**Disclaimer:** __Awww, I'm so flattered, guys. Hopefully you'll stick with me. Now, this chapter I don't like that much. I had absolutely no time to edit this, so please try to see past the grammar mistakes. I'll edit later. I only wrote it because I always wanted to see it translated into an AMV, but that's a far off dream. I promise the next chapter will be good, because it'll actually have some blood and action in it! Basically another 'episode' of Inuyasha's transformation! _

_**Chapter Summary**: __Kagome always gets the last word and it usually ends with "SIT". But this time, it ended in her silence. Inuyasha finally reflects on his mistakes with Kagome after she made her stay in her own era for a week without communication. This time, he thinks of what's best for Kagome and not himself. Just this once..._

**_Song Used - "Gone" by N'Sync_**

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Inuyasha stared unblinkingly into the blackened void of the well that led to Kagome's time. The world of cities, iron-carts, fat cats, little brothers that couldn't confess their hearts to third grade girls, and...ramen.

Ramen.

Mm, that struck a hunger cable in his stomach, but this was the wrong time to be daydreaming about 'ninja food'. The brunette eyes and bluish black-sheen hair of a young girl fuzzily implanted its illustration in his head.

"...Kagome..." Inuyasha's bronzed, sleek lips mouthed in harmony with the restless pitch of his voice.

Those lips soon fashioned into a pout along with the thinning of his eyelids. He folded his arms over the frame of the well as his ears drooped, guiltily hoping she'd pop up from it.

"I must've really ticked her off this time. There's no real reason for her to come back, after all. Naraku's gone and the Shikon Jewel was..." He choked on his announcement. He wouldn't admit that these last days of his existence without Kagome pained him.

The only way he knew how to conceal himself from her was to stun her with harsh and childish words. It was also the only way he knew how to secretly express his smite for her since words never favored him. But this time, it cost him.

_/There's a thousand words that I could say_

_To make you come home/_

Inuyasha's sunbird-gold irises followed the landscape to the skies above him. The coiling breeze stung the white of his eyes as he remembered how much Kagome appreciated the white of the clouds and the twinkle of the stars. She liked little things like this. She smiled at little things like this.

Unexpectedly, Kagome's haunting glare was painted in the sky before him. Inuyasha cringed with a sweat drop, blinking widely. He 'watched' her walk away with a _**'HMPH!'**_ No shout, no _**'Sit Boy'**_, just silence. Her thick hair danced behind her in rhythm with the angered switch of her hips until the memory faded.

_/Seems so long ago you_

_Walked away_

_And left me alone/_

He did a lot of stupid and immature things to hide his true self from Kagome and everyone else. He figured that way, he'd never be hurt. Ever. But he never realized that it would hurt everyone else that lingered around him. Deep down, it was paining him too.

It brought back memories of the day she blurted, _**'I hate your GUTS'**_ after the second time she revived Kikyo. It hurt him. More than anyone could ever know. More than he, himself, could ever recognize.

(Flashback)

_**"This is all your fault! I hate your GUTS!"** Sheer loathe sheeted Kagome's normally merry eyes as she announced this to top of her lungs. Her hair was even suspended in the heat of the moment for just that second to demonstrate her bemused fury. _

_Inuyasha snapped back with his arm heaved in a gesture of protection and devastation. His broad eyebrow was twitching, mouth hung open, and eyes shuddering saucers. **"Ka...Kagome..."**_

(End of Flashback)

_/And I remember what you said to me_

_You were acting so strange/_

Inuyasha groaned to himself, eyes half-lidded under his curtaining bangs that framed the portrait of his face handsomely. "Argh, stupid Kagome. What the hell did 'I' do? It's always ME, God damn it!" He barked to the atmosphere, only earning a stiff wallop on the skull by an acorn. "HEY! He scowled at the clueless squirrel.

Even the squirrel knew he won the idiot award for the day.

_/And Maybe I was too blind to see_

_That you needed a change_

_Was it something I said_

_To make you turn away?_

_To make you walk out and_

_Leave me cold?/_

"Feh," Inuyasha angrily sealed his eyes shut as he dug down into the torso of his Fire Rat haori.

He shyly uncovered the heart locket Kagome had tried to give him. He blinked absentmindedly, still clueless as to why she gave it to him.

"...Why'd she even give this 'thing' to me, anyway?" Inuyasha grumbled frustratingly. He tucked it away in spite of it now_. 'Wait...how LONG has it been?' _He mused with abrupt earnestness._ 'The moon's showed up too many nights since she's been gone...' _

_/If I could just find a way_

_To make it so that you were_

_Right here_

_Right now/_

He usually couldn't even put up with a day of Kagome's absence. He felt a little lost and out of place when she wasn't by his side, either arguing with him or smiling into his flushed and irritated face. Either one would please him, just anything to break this awful silence that stung his ears.

Inuyasha closed his eyes once more to let the zephyr of afternoon toy with the velvetiness of his silver hairs.

_/I been sitting here_

_Can't get you off my mind_

_I try my best to be a man_

_And be strong/_

"Damn Kagome..." Inuyasha snorted and propped himself up on his nude feet.

The half-dog demon angled his body into the direction route of Kaede's village. He clutched the golden heart locket tightly nevertheless as he glimpsed over his broad shoulder to the well. '_Is...she really not coming back this time?_' Sheer terror wracked through his yellowed irises.

What scared him most was how much he noticed what an empty shell he was without her. It was as if he needed her to breathe and think clearly. As if her eyes, smile, scent and aura gave him permission to move and live. Now that she hasn't been here for the past few moons, he was gradually rotting behind a defensive shield of his usual pretend-act.

Almost achingly, Inuyasha hoisted the trembling fist clutched to Kagome's locket to his breast. "...What the hell's happened to me since I met that stupid wench?"

_/I've drove myself insane_

_Wishing I could touch your face/_

Maybe the battle with Naraku was over and Kagome felt she was no longer needed, but it only hit him in this trice of time that he needed her more than he ever had in the past. She carred more than the jewel with her; she carried his sanity. He couldn't even fight a decent battle without her confident, assuring presence! How obvious did he have to make it for her to see already? ...For him to see already?

_/But the truth remains you're_

_Gone_

_You're_

_Gone_

_Baby you're_

_Gone_

_Girl, you're gone_

_Baby girl you're_

_Gone_

_You're_

_Gone/_

"ARGH!" Inuyasha kicked a pebble out of his pathway as he stormed through the forest, hoping to find something to occupy himself with. He almost wished Shippou was here to convince him to go after Kagome just to have an excuse. For some reason, something put a barrier on that possibility of him fleeing to her era.

He never knew how desperate he seemed until today. All the times Kagome would head back to her world and he'd secretively long to chase after her tracks. He made his thoughts apparent to the world, even when he didn't invite himself into her present time.

"Damn...I really did make a stupid fuss over things, didn't I?" Inuyasha blinked, bangs swaying with the downward tilt of his head as he hiked the forest grounds._ 'Always saying I only came for Kagome to hurry up and track down Naraku was the stupidest excuse I hit her with. I mean, it WAS half-true, but...I was so determined to cover up and keep my emotions at bay l-like Kikyo could, I managed to hurt Kagome in the process.' _His pupil dilated, the light straining to seep through. _'I've...been neglecting Kagome's feelings this whole time. Half the time I'm only thinking about M-MINE. That's why she won't come back! Damn...what do I do NOW th-then? How can I face her? Kagome...gimme a sign.' _

_/Now I don't wanna make excuses, Baby_

_It won't change the fact that you're gone_

_But if there's something that I could do_

_Won't you please let me know?/_

Eventually, Inuyasha busied himself with things that bored him more than sighing. He went about fighting low-ranked demons that threatened Kaede's village, bothered Shippou and avoided all conversation involving Kagome. Or tried to...

"Look, if Kagome forgot about me, then I'll forget about HER!" His words always came out hasty and gruff. He never had a second thought about them, either.

"You can't be serious, Inuyasha. Stop putting on an act, will you? Really, you didn't convince anyone then and you're not doing it now." Sango disapproved dryly, hands to her lap.

"Convince anyone of WHAT?! I don't give a DAMN about what you people think!" Inuyasha acquiesced, bosom rumbling with robust growls that were ready to erupt.

"That you have feelings for Kagome."

"WHAT feelings?!"

"Must I spell it out for you?! Of LOVE! Urgh, you are so irritating! Kagome's a Saint to put up with you day after day."

At this, Inuyasha retracted from his raging temper and just gazed thoughtfully into the facial expression engraved into Sango's annoyed face. Silent for a few seconds, he rotated his attention away from her, eyebrows curt and wrinkled down on his brow. "Look," he breathed. "There's no way in hell I'm in love with--"

"Inuyasha don't be such a selfish THREE YEAR OLD! I'm younger than you and even I'M more mature!" Shippou puffed up his little cheeks.

"Shippou's right, Inuyasha." Miroku nodded, face carved with the contours of solemnity. "Kagome, once again, is the one that's suffering. Since you obviously don't care about her, you haven't even realized that, have you?"

Shippou harried a snarl, "Why can't you just be a man about it, Inuyasha? Go SEE her!"

"All of you just SHUT UP and BUTT OUT! I don't need you telling me what to do!" With that heavily heated outburst of scorch, Inuyasha bailed out of the discussion by simply leaving in a howl of insults at them.

_/So I'll just hang around_

_And find some things to_

_To take my mind off missing you/_

Out of wrath, Inuyasha dented his fist into the bark of a tree. "Stupid, Stupid, STUPID!" He belittled himself and not his friends or Kagome for once in this round. "Miroku's right, God damn it. What kind of man AM I?"_ 'No, I'm not a man at all. I'm a damned half-demon, and that's all I'll ever be.'_

But once realization hit him, he stopped pounding his frustration into the wounded tree. Inuyasha's bewildered eyes followd the old contours of the tree trunk and gazed in awestruck.

The Sacred Tree.

This is where he met Kagome.

He gritted his fangs and rolled his fingers into his palm to imitate a balled fist.

**_"I love you, I love you as a half-demon, Inuyasha."_**

"LIAR!" Inuyasha had to restrain himself from beating the tree to fulfill the relief of his stress. "S-Stupid wench...if that's true then why the hell did you ABANDON me?! Why'd you leave me to go insane like this?!" It took awhile for him to answer his own question, but it slapped him powerfully when it came flying into his conclusion statement. _'...Because I abandoned her first.' _

_/And I know in my heart_

_You can't say that you don't_

_Love me too_

_Please say you do/_

_(Flashback)_

_"Hey, Sota! What cha' doin' that for? You're ruining the Sacred Tree." Inuyasha accused as Sota had finished carving the names of him and his girlfriend into the family's Sacred Tree encircled in a heart._

_"Mom said she didn't mind and it's just an old tree." Sota grinned sheepishly. "Besides, when Htomi comes over...I-I want her to see." _

_"Htomi?" Inuyasha cocked a lazy eyebrow while folding his arms. "Isn't that the girl that you were too wishy-washy to admit your feelings to?" Inuyasha truly mocked himself._

_"Yeah," Sota's smiling eyes had found the concrete while a red shade had found his face meanwhile. He was too into his daydreaming to grasp Inuyasha's slur. "This'll show her that we'll always be together, forever and ever."_

_Inuyasha's white ears perked upright in his direction, one twitching. "...Yeah? So carving your names in a tree will guarantee you'll be together...for as long as you want?" _

_"Yep!" _

_"But...what if the carving gets worn away or something? What does it mean then?"_

_"That the wish is apart of the tree now and is forever sealed and granted. As long as the tree's there and living, then that's all that matters. You may not be able to see it, but the tree will and it'll always remember and protect the promise."_

_Inuyasha shimmering irises stared after Sota for a long while in wonder before hauling his gawk to the engravings of the two names sealed into the tree's skin. "...Huh. So then it's some type of love spell?"_

_"It's actually just wishful thinking, Inuyasha, ehe..."_

_(End of Flashback)_

_/I been sittin' here_

_Can't get you off my mind_

_I try my best to be a man and be strong_

_I drove myself insane wishin' I could touch your face/_

"...As long as they want." Inuyasha's eyes twinkled in the mapping of the sun rays.

He outstretched a wanting hand to the worn away outline burned into the heart of the tree's surface, running his rough hands along the existing memory. It wasn't in remembrance of Kikyo's arrow, though. It was in remembrance of Kagome's eyes when they fell upon him, and his upon her.

"...Maybe it'll bring her back." He suddenly withdrew his twitching fingers as if he had been burned. _'Keh, don't be stupid Inuyasha. Wishful thinking isn't going to be enough to change it.'_ And with that notion buried in the grave of his mind, he abandoned the tree, distrusting its ability to grant his wishful thinking.

_/But the truth remains_

_You're_

_Gone/_

Inuyasha plopped down on the slope of a grassy plateau. Gazing over the valley as he hugged his sword to his shoulder, he reminisced on his time with Kagome.

All the moments he envied Koga for having the confidence to tell Kagome how he felt without any hesitation...what a waste. He was jealous of Koga for even touching the girl and for simplg having the capability to express feelings Inuyasha couldn't.

All the moments he pushed Kagome away, yet she still comforted him, unfazed.

All the moments he could have scooped her up in his arms when they were alone...gone down the drain.

_/What..._

_Will I do?_

_If I can't..._

_Be with you?_

_Tell me where will I turn to?/_

It was much too late to say he did it all so he wouldn't get too close to her, to protect both of them.

It was much too late to say he didn't show all his weaknesses to her and had already gotten dangerously attached.

It was much too late to say that Kikyo and he had been deeper, because now that was an official lie. Kagome and he knew one another much longer and spent scenarios of emotional roller coasters with each other. Kagome knew him more than Kikyo could ever. Kagome unlocked his heart more than Kikyo had ever.

Inuyasha's clawed hand pricked a Jasmine from the meadows. His eyes lazily scanned over the petals. He inhaled deeply, remembering this was one of the many scents blended in Kagome's aroma. _'Ka...gome...'_ He mentally sighed, sounding rather lovesick.

...That was it.

He had to do it.

It hurt too much to keep it bottled.

Subsequently, his feet dragged him back to the aging tree. He leapt into the highest branch, searching for a location. Found it.

As he worked with his talons into the wood, he pondered if he was still in Kagome's heart during this unbroken segregation between them.

_/Where will I be_

_Now that we are apart?_

_Am I still in your heart?/_

When he subtracted his hand, he surveyed the carving of all the things he wished to say to that beautiful 'wench' that drove him to the cliff's edge of insanity. All the things he bashed himself for ever thinking or saying aloud, all the things he could never say to her in a confrontation.

He wrote his heart out for her in the tree's sacred bark and engraved their name sloppily, but neither Kagome nor anyone else would ever see it.

Just the tree.

Finally someone heard it from his heart, even if it was just the old bark that was the witness. It was enough.

As he smiled sorrowfully, he hoped Kagome felt what he had about their temporary departure. He hoped she planned to be with him for as long as forever counted. They didn't have to mate, kiss, hug, cuddle, agree or divulge, 'I love you'. She just had to be by his side, standing on his right with her iron-cart and sacred arrows, supporting him with every step of the way...forever and ever.

...But that was just wishful thinking, wasn't it? A feudal fairy-tale, wasn't it?

_/Why don't you see_

_That I need you here with me?/_

Because...

Inuyasha knew in reality it would never happen. Kagome's life belonged to her own era and not his heart. He needed Kagome. He knew this too, but throughout their 'relationship' it had mostly been about what he wanted, needed and felt. This time, he was making a choice that benefited only her. This time, he thought of what Kagome needed instead of himself. He didn't care to know if she ever wanted to stay at his right side for all time, at this point in comtemplation.

Kagome was alive...

Breathing.

Laughing.

Smiling.

That's all he needed to know.

Late in that evening, he sealed the well permanently.

_/But the truth_

_Re-mains..._

_You're..._

_Gone.../_


	4. Yes, I've Lost My Mind

**_"Ya Soshla S Uma – I've Lost My Mind" _**

**Disclaimer: **_Bash me for putting another song in this chapter, but daggone it, I can't help myself! These songs are what I write to the tempo of. I wanted to insert InuYasha's "Ai no Uta – Song of Love", but it wouldn't have fit…maybe in another chapter. Excuse any grammar mistakes_

**_Chapter Summary: _**_He vowed to protect her with his life. But he anticipated the day he'd have to protect her from himself. _

_Song Used – "All the Things She Said – Tatu" – I infused the translation of the Russian lyrics and the English version together. _

_0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o_

Fear.

Horror.

Betrayal.

…Blood.

The intoxicating concoction of stanching scents aroused and banked his inner demon's starvation even further. What a mouth-watering smell it was.

Inuyasha grinned monstrously through his elongated fangs, chuckling enigmatically.

"Inu…yasha!" the strangulated loss of breath that seeped from Kagome's choked throat contacted his white ears.

Inuyasha's ear twitched, head a weighty thudding pulse as Kagome's hurt decanted into his veins.

Her pain…it was poisonous to his demon blood and remedy to his human blood.

His clawed fingers strained to strap less pressure around Kagome's feeble neck. He was struggling with his inner-self.

_'Ka…g-gome…'_ Inuyasha's red eyes radiated off the dark aura overshadowing his body. _'D-Damn it! I…I'm losing m-myself…'_

"P-Please, it…this h-hurts!" Kagome squealed faintly, hoping her cries of despair would awaken the half-demon's true self. "G-Give me back Inuyasha! H-His heart doesn't belong to the d-darkness!"

"BE QUIET!" the demonic Inuyasha yapped, unhurriedly dragging her off her toes so they could dangle above ground. He soon flung her to the clayed earth.

"KAGOME!" Miroku, Sango and Shippou screeched.

"AH!" Kagome thumped to the rocky surface of the ground, shakily raising her body up to gaze at the hazed image of the half-demon.

He was clutching his head and snarling out in enraged howls.

"I-Inuyasha," his name stung the tip of Kagome's tongue. She growled at the light twinge of a taste in her mouth before lifting to her knees. "You can FIGHT it, Inuyasha! You're stronger than this! I know you are!"

Everyone questioned his previous action, however. Did he toss her off him because one touch of her would purify him or so he wouldn't permanently kill her?

Inuyasha raised a quaking hand of flesh-clenching veins to his crimson orbs, trying to memorize his murderess assaults when he was deceived into this form, trying to remember who he was.

Wait…who WAS he? He had never known since the day he was born.

The blue slit of his pupils dilated as this question led to his downfall. Distracted by despondency, the demonic voice in his head took over. His mane stood afloat as he once again gripped his temples, swinging his head from left to right furiously as if there was an eerie ring drumming through his ears.

"Miroku, what do we do?! Inuyasha's gone berserk!" little Shippou pounced on Miroku's shoulder, terrified by what his eyes displayed to him.

"I'm afraid there's nothing we CAN do…" Miroku was under attack by distress. "This is Inuyasha's battle and his alone."

"A-All of you…get…AWAY from h-here!" Inuyasha's roar teleported through their ears and hearts, frightening their souls as he battled himself. "**_NOW_**!"

"K-Kagome, let's go before he c-comes after us, too!" Shippou pulled on her sleeve when he reached her, panicking to see Inuyasha's blood-red eyes target them.

The half-demon smirked.

"NAAAH!" Shippou tried to convince Kagome more hysterically. "C-Come on before it's too LATE!"

"No!" Kagome snatched her arm away, stubborn as a mule. "I WON'T leave without Inuyasha!" she managed to drag herself onto her feet, despite the burning throb in her thighs. "INU-YASHA!"

Inuyasha's snarls only intensified. He stretched out a curved, clawed hand at her, pupils flashing between amber and Nichrome-blue. The blinded half-demon exploded after Shippou and Kagome, growling.

"KA-GO-ME!" Shippou wailed, a tear of fear wedged in the corner of his wide eye.

"Inuyasha, SIT!"

Thud.

"URGH!"

Everyone blinked all at once, drawing in their breaths sharply and awaiting Inuyasha's response. But he never did unearth his face from the ground that he was kissing at the moment.

…Kagome took a 'confident' step forward, hands reaching out.

"Wait, Kagome, don't!" Shippou tailed after her, attempting to drag her into the opposite direction, which just wasn't working for his short stature. "You don't know if it WORKED or not!"

"Which is why I have to check, Shippou!" sweat caressed her brow. She was close enough now.

Fearful of Shippou's theory, she felt her knees quake and buckle the moment they brought her down to the ground like magnets. She leaned into Inuyasha's side, tears pearling along her eyelashes. "In…Inu…y-yasha? I-Is it you?"

The half-demon groaned. His shoulders twitched as he slowly heaved his face from the penetrating rocks.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome beamed, somehow assured it was her dog demon despite not being able to see his face clearly.

"…_Guess again, Wench_."

Kagome's gasp was tangled up in her heart's arteries as the sudden naked image of four red slashes turned the air a gory red. She toppled over on her side to the floor, crimson fluids oozing into a lake of red from the four gashes that shredded her fragile flesh and uniform.

"KAGOME!" This time, the three members of friends came galloping to her aid.

Kagome's eyes had blanked into clone pools of auburn as she stared unwaveringly at her attacker. Blood dribbled from the crook of her mouth.

Her tears finally fell as she whispered a prickly breath of his name, "Inu…ya…sha…"

Kagome's hand extended for him, her eyes barely making out the beast in between the vision behind the margins of her fingers.

…Inuyasha's slot-pupils sucked themselves into the red of his orbs like a vacuum until they had completely vanished. His fanged mouth was dropped into agape. _'Ka…go…me's b-blood. I can s-smell it all over m-me!'_ His pained inner voice rasped. _'I…wounded Kagome?!'_

Shippou glared up at Inuyasha from Kagome's bosom, hateful tears tearing away at his eyes. "Just look what you DID, Inuyasha! You wounded her!!"

Inuyasha took a step backwards, lost between the heart of his regular self and the heart of his blackened demonic aura. He looked like a petrified animal.

"It's cause of you Kagome's hurt so badly!" Shippou bravely declared as he pointed accusingly at the half-demon. "All because you can't control your STUPID demon side! This is all your FAULT, INUYASHA!"

"Shippou!" Miroku warned. "Don't provoke him! He might lunge for us as well!"

Inuyasha flinched, almost activating the color change of his eyes. _'I…It's…a-all my fault?' _

The normal amber had claimed its return, but the red that surrounded it didn't alter back into white. The purple stripes to his cheeks hadn't dispersed, either. He felt confused, wrathful and hurt in one single binding emotion. His scents, through Shippou's nose, were a mixture between his murderess demon blood and his old Inuyasha odor.

"Get out of here, I-Inuyasha! Get away from KAGOME!" Shippou raged on, sniffling.

"N-No, I…" Pained by this truth and the demonic blood still flowing to his head and trying to recoup governance over him, Inuyasha flung his head hysterically. "NO!" He howled, the torture of mind control and heartbreak devouring him.

He spun on his heel and broke for the hills, stripping through the trees with his attacking claws as his fury got the best of him. He snarled like a wild dog in the night and took out his conflicting complications upon the forest that frustrated his escape.

Far…

Far away…

_'…From Kagome.' _

That's where he needed to go.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**_(Kaede's Village – Following Morning)_**

"Kagome? Are you awake?"

"S…S-Sango?" Kagome, straining to wearily sit up from the wooly bedding made for her on the floor, shrieked out in agony. "Wh…Where's Inuyasha?"

"Kagome!" Sango let a little air of anxiety bloat her lungs at Kagome's pain and words before simply leaning her back down into the bed. "Kagome, please stay still. You're in no condition to be up and about. You need your rest."

"Where's Inuyasha?" Kagome repeated, almost importunately.

Sango's eyes glistened in a way that had Kagome terrified.

"Did something happen to him?! …Oh no!" Once that thought fed her conscience, she jolted up again, just to be with that familiar stranger – twanging pain. "ARGH!"

"Kagome," Sango's tone was a cross between worry and warning. "Please."

"Sango…" her breathing heightened in rapidity, feeling the bandages that wrapped her ribcage. "I w-want to see Inuyasha…"

"Kagome, Inu…yasha is," Sango's head dropped, eyes hunting for the most proper way to articulate this. "…He—"

"I know he wounded me, so please don't t-tell me that part. I just wanna know where he is." A grave impend of mourning and frustration intermingled with her soreness.

After a doubtful yet understanding moment, "We don't know. He ran off, still in his demon form. We didn't go after him—"

"Wha?! Well, why not?! Who knows what'll happen to him out there! H-He'll, he'll—" Tears whelmed Kagome's shuddery irises.

"We had to think about saving YOU first, Kagome. One more second of hesitation, you would've…" Sango's voice cracked down the middle. "…not been with us right now."

The demon slayer could only halt her lips as she watched a sliver of Kagome's crystalline tear fall.

Then another. And then another.

Kagome lifted the blanket to her face, shoulders trembling. "I-Inuyasha…" she wept, adding onto her physical agony by suffering from her internal. _'H…he…didn't mean to, do it, r-right? It was because of his demon form…he's losing all pieces of himself. What am I gonna do? Oh, Inuyasha…'_

It just dawned on her how many times she uttered the name 'Inuyasha' from her voice. She whispered it into her pillow each time before she fell asleep, like her own little secret prayer. She could call him other things like, **_'Hey, You, Idiot, Bone-Head, Doofus, Half-Breed, Dog-Boy'_**. But 'Inuyasha' sounded so very beautifully when it rolled off the incline of her tongue.

_'I say his name constantly like this because I'm either obsessed or just really, really in love with its pronunciation.'_ Kagome bit back her smile_. 'Or…is it just Inuyasha?' _

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Inuyasha sat perched up on a tree's limb, away from the arms of Kagome and Kaede's village. He held a guarded hold to Tetsusaiga, somehow feeling it slip further and further away from his mental reach.

The half-demon's ocher eyes of treasury gold had misplaced their sun-ray gleam and were lumbered with a lifeless emptiness instead.

'Kagome,' the name of the fifteen year old girl echoed in his haunted and apologetic mind. _'I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I would never hurt you on purpose; you know that, but…'_ He griped. _'…Then again, I don't think you do. Not anymore, at least.'_ Inuyasha mentally growled. "Damn it, I'm such an IDIOT!"

"I couldn't agree more, Master Inuyasha." Myoga the flea sprang up on his shoulder, arms crossed 'intellectually'. "But might I suggest…"

Inuyasha glanced at the pest before slanting his eyes and squatting him. "Keh! Leave me alone, will ya'? I already know what you're gonna say and the answer is, 'no, no' and, oh yeah, 'NO!' He watched the flattened flea hover earthwards.

"B-But MASTER!" After reviving, Myoga leaped into the branch above his 'master' to avoid any further damage. "I'm NOT going to tell you to go back to Kagome, but…don't you think you should at least check if she's alright? You gave her a pretty nasty blow—GAH!" The flea ducked the wrath of Inuyasha's fist. "O-Or not…"

"SHAD-up," Inuyasha snarled with eyes closed heatedly. "There's no way in hell, heaven or earth I'm going back there. I already knew something like this would happen." His heart growled more than his vocal cords. "I should've listened to my head back then! I should've left when I had the chance!"

Myoga sighed in defeated. "…Do you know what your father once said to Sesshomaru when he demanded to possess Tetsusaiga?"

Inuyasha snorted boorishly. "Don't know, don't care." However, he gripped his sword closer.

"He said, 'Sesshomaru, do you have someone you wish to protect?'"

"…And I care because WHY again?"

"However, Sesshomaru in some ways is as immature as you are. He denies certain things because of his pride—"

"HEY!"

—"He denies that he too has fallen under the care for humans, such as Rin. Sesshomaru is also no different than a human; he is consumed by the hunger for power. But you see, what makes you two different is your reasons for wanting Tetsusaiga."

Inuyasha blinked and then 'Keh'd' with his arms crossed in carelessness. "You just now figurin' that out? Some 'wise old man' you are."

"Tetsusaiga was created to protect your mother. It was forged out of your father's feelings for her. The only reason Tetsusaiga transforms for your is because you had the desire to protect Kagome. Your half-demon blood allows you to HOLD Tetsusaiga, but the transformation is through Kagome. That, Master Inuyasha, is the key to your power and what makes you more like your father than Sesshomaru. You're the one walking his path. Kagome was meant to come to this world. You two were meant to fall in love"—

Myoga didn't see Inuyasha's eye twitch.

—"By wanting to protect Kagome out of your love for her—Y'OUCH!"

Inuyasha marched off into the forest with his head high, leaving Myoga's temple swollen by a big lump. "SPARE me the mushy bs, Myoga! I'm goin' for a walk…"

….Inuyasha's life had been threatened by Sesshomaru earlier. And just as his half-brother walked out on the ended fight, Inuyasha morphed into that grotesque demon. Knowing the result of the new challenge, Kagome had tried to snap him out of it but only got herself caught by the throat by Inuyasha's bare hands. Sesshomaru abandoned them there.

More than ever, Inuyasha doubted his quest to find the jewel shards. Before her perked himself here in this tree, he was out waddling in the river, struggling furiously to wash the reek of blood off his claws. And if Koga ever caught that odor…

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

The paled full moon dangled over the canvas of illuminating starlight, crooning a midnight song of serenity to affectionate the crying heart of Mother Nature. Kagome seemed to hear the chorale of the song as well. She had wondered if Inuyasha heard it, too…with his furry white dog ears, hmph.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Inuyasha sat on the boulder wedged between the river-currents that rampaged off the edge of the cliff madly, where the water blasted into the jagged rocks below. With his eyelids slit and lowered, he peeked up from the short length of his eyelashes to gaze at the moon. The fireflies that seemingly sympathized with him didn't bug him, either. At least he wasn't lonely…

His right ear twitched in a single round, his back hunched.

_/This…_

_Is…_

_Not…_

_Enough…/_

Alright, time to think…

"I ain't going back and that's final." The half-breed announced. He snootily threw on his tough guy, as if someone were listening and if they were, actually cared. "Keh! I don't need HER or those weak humans pussy-footin' me, anyway! They just slow me down! Its just another load off my back, and good ridden!"

Inuyasha then paused, blinking as he looked at his background. His nose twitched. No one was…here.

His unsure lips went through a cycle of gymnastics until he slackened his sturdy expression. _'Who am I kidding? But it's not like…it's not like…Kagome would ever want to see my face after what I did, right? After all me, her 'guard dog', turned on her like a rabid mutt!'_

_/I'm in serious shit_

_I feel totally lost_

_If I'm asking for help_

_It's only because/_

He could smell Kagome's tears from here. The blood was still blighting the air, but her tears were fresher. Inuyasha had to restrain himself on an invisible leash from breaking from common sense and sprinting to her right then and there. He now had to adapt to the concept that he could no longer run to Kagome's aid whenever he smelt her fear and unhappiness.

Inuyasha gave out a long, suffering sigh before straddling out on his back against the cold boulder, staring at how round and full the moon was.

He remembered the night of his human-transformation…before he met Miroku and Sango.

Ah…she really had changed him, hadn't she?

_/Being with you_

_Has opened my eyes_

_Could I ever believe_

_Such a perfect surprise? /_

"Wait…new moon?!" Inuyasha woofed.

Drats…

What luck.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

_'Inuyasha, I understand why you ran away, but…' _

Kagome whimpered, Shippou curled into her uniform soundly while Miroku and Sango had long ago took sleep's kind offer.

_ '….But why haven't you come back tonight? It's so late, and…'_ She hugged the blanket nearer to her tearstained features. "And I need to see you. I'm in pain because you're not here. Your heart's so far." Her whimpers saturated into a soggy snivel.

Kagome tautened her fingers to the wooly curls of the blanket, kneading her lip with her upper row of clattering teeth.

_/I keep asking myself_

_Wondering how/_

She was…scared.

More scared than she had ever been today.

No, not that he struck her, but because she couldn't reach his heart today. She could only helplessly worry where Inuyasha had disappeared to, what he was doing, what he was thinking, if he felt scared and betrayed by himself….

Kagome's clammy-cold fingers fearfully feathered over the bandages that hid the shredded, bloodied flesh from her naked touch. She allowed a crusty breath to deflate from her chest. Trying to calm her thoughts, she couldn't calm the tears rising forth.

World, disappear.

_/I keep closing my eyes_

_But I can't block you out_

_Wanna fly to a place_

_Where it's just you and me_

_Nobody else_

_So we can be free/_

(Flashback)

**_"I guess the thought of being alone in this world is sort of a lonely prospect."_**_ Kagome's tone was clipped and drawling as she forced that false smile on her trembling lips. _

_Inuyasha invited himself to step forward, boldly confessing, **"You're not alone; I'm right here with you!"**__ Then his voice seemed to drop into a chasm of anxiety, realization and distress. **"Unless…you don't wanna be with me anymore."**_

(End of Flashback)

_'Th-That's not even a QUESTION…'_ Kagome unconsciously gripped her wounded stomach, flinching at the foreign agony. She didn't know if the pain was manufactured from her injury or her heart.

"Inuyasha!" she wept, eyes squeezed shut. "Don't you dare think of abandoning m-me! You promised you'd always be right here with me!"

_/All the things you said_

_All the things you said_

_Running through my head_

_Running through my head_

_All the things you said_

_This_

_Is_

_Not_

_Enough!_

_Ya Soshla S Uma_

_I've lost my mind/_

Miroku's face hardened, eyelashes remaining pasted to his cheeks to fake his siesta. _'…Once again, Inuyasha, you've left Kagome suffering at your ill way of decision-making.'_

Kilala mewed as her ears dropped. The first rain droplet dripped onto her tiny nose. She sneezed cutely while ruffling her fur. "Mew?" Her round, red eyes followed the raindrop's journey from the clouds.

The sky was about to cry.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Inuyasha toddled through the serene parts of the riverbank, black strands tailing behind him in the water ripples as his scalp dripped with bucketing rainwater. He grunted vociferously, bearing a hand over his chest-wound. It was still bleeding from where Sesshomaru pierced him.

"D…Damn it…now would be a good time for Kagome's first-aid kit." The half-breed groaned but quickly thwacked himself for speaking her name aloud. "Forget about the wench, Inuyasha! Snap out of it!" He flung his head, eyes sealed tightly.

_/I keep closing my eyes_

_But I can't block you out_

_I can not understand myself_

_Where did you appear from? _

_It is the slow poison _

_It is making me crazy/_

The more his eyes strained ahead into the forest pits, the more he found himself going insane over the drive to see the damned girl's face. Damn his human emotions…

It was his fault Kagome's blood had permanently plagued his nostrils.

It was his fault he had to choose to run and hide instead of be at Kagome's side right now.

It he hadn't attacked her, none of this would even BE his fault. But it was and he had to respect the distance between them now. But God how he longed to see chocolaty eyes melting into his…

_/They say it's my fault_

_But I want her so much_

_They say it's delirium _

_I did try to forget_

_To the end and down_

_But without you there is no me/_

"Argh!" Inuyasha slipped on the rocky protrudes beneath the water level. His side rammed into a nearby river bank boulder, only causing more soreness to wrack his nerves.

The half-demon sneered and moaned, body tremulous as rain trickled down his cheeks and leaked off his eyelash.

_/Wanna fly her away_

_Where the sun and the rain_

_Come in over my face_

_Washing away all the shame/ _

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"…The new moon!" Kagome bolted up from her bedding, eyes squeezed out so far the balls would've unattached from their retinas. "It's tonight!"

With the candle dimmed out, her horrified realization hadn't awakened anyone.

The injured girl panicked in a frenzy as she rushed up from her poor handicap-position. "I have to get to him before Naraku does! He's seriously injured!" Kagome limped to the doorway only to find Kilala there first, surveying the wet atmosphere with her nose. Kagome's eyelashes fluttered.

_/Situation HELP_

_Situation SOS_

_Without you I am not myself/_

"What is it, Kilala? Do you smell something?"

"Mew!" The two-tailed cat scurried off into the film of rain that blinded the night of darkness.

"…Maybe it's Inuyasha! Maybe he's come back!" Kagome gasped a mouthful of hope as she followed Kilala's blood-hound nose despite the blood tickling down her thigh from her stretched wound.

Winching and yelping she ignored her sensitive nerves and continued after the cat, fighting to keep up. _'I WILL find you, Inuyasha…so don't you even think of hiding from me…'_

_/All the things you said_

_All the things you said_

_All the things you said_

_Running through my head_

_Running through my head_

_This…_

_Is…_

_Not…_

_Enough_

_Ya Soshla S Uma_

_I've lost my mind/_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

…How is this possible?

Kilala stood between them, speculating their frozen stares that had blocked out the world around the two.

"…Kagome…" Inuyasha uttered beneath the tendered tenor of his strained breath, splinters of light frenetically quaking in the iris of his jade eye. Rain dribbled off the tip of his black bang and down the pyramid of his chin.

_/When I stop and stare_

_Doubt worrying me/_

"Inu…yasha…" Kagome nearly wailed out, her ribcage's bones crushing in on her poor heart. Tears amalgamated with rainwater spoiled her once rosy-colored cheeks. She shook nonetheless, her phalanges frozen blue.

_/Cause I'm feeling for her_

_What she's feeling for me/_

Inuyasha took a cagey step back and away from her, afraid. They were already at a purely far distance, but he had felt he was closer than he should be. Forgetting about the pang in his breast, he scrunched his shaky fingers into a fisting, nose crinkled to show his troubled reaction to her presence.

_/I can try to pretend_

_I can try to forget_

_But it's driving me mad_

_Going out of my_

_Head…! /_

"Inuyasha, please don't run…!" Kagome said in a hurry as she jerked forward by a step.

"Wh…What the h-hell are YOU doing out here?!" Inuyasha's tone, however, was crackled instead of overriding. But soon enough he regained himself, "Damn it, Kagome you shouldn't even be WALKING! You should be resting back at Kaede's!"

"I-I know, but your wound…!" Fresh, watery rime-white shards of love and grief mended under Kagome's wide eyes. "Y-You're human tonight and I was worried about you!" she pleaded for his understanding.

"STOP your blubbering and get the hell OUT of here! I don't need you and your pathetic tears, Kagome! That's not gonna heal my wound any faster!" Inuyasha scolded, somehow managing to still growl through his human vocals.

Kagome, on the other hand, didn't look the least bit hurt by this fraud complaint. Instead, she bit her lip until blood drew and ran for him with her longing arms outstretched.

_/The light is shutting down_

_I am flying somewhere_

_Without you there is no me_

_It is the slow poison_

_It is making me crazy/_

Inuyasha's heart skipped quite a few beats as he grew weaker in the knees at the sight depicted in front of his blurred eyes. He was so excitingly terrified; his heart was galloping on a horse track race.

Eyes widely-bulged, he backed further way, forcing his teeth to bare so he could stand his ground. "Stay AWAY from me, KAGOME!"

_/All the things she said_

_All the things she said_

_All the things she said_

_Running through my head_

_Running through my head_

_Running through my head_

_This…_

_Is…_

_Not…_

_Enough!_

_Ya Soshla S Uma_

_I've lost my mind/_

It still didn't intimidate her.

In a moment's notice, the human girl's slender arms were squeezing Inuyasha's heart to hers as she embraced him like she were cleaving onto her very world.

Inuyasha's muscles contracted as his heart and soul went through a quick seizure of emotions. His eyes wobbled in his sockets, poignantly alarmed by the pressing of heated flesh and blood. It was as if he hadn't felt her touch in a millennia.

_/And I'm all mixed up_

_Feeling cornered and rushed_

_They say it's my fault_

_But I want her so much/_

"Ka…g-gome…" He begged, breath-rate quickened.

"I never stopped thinking about you, not even for an instant," Kagome sobbed through her confession, fingers driving into his Fire Rat. "Not even for an instant…"

The same words were given to Kikyo at one point, just behind a gruffer male voice.

Inuyasha squinted against the barreling rain as his bushy eyebrows grooved inwards, his lips tight.

_/I can try to pretend_

_I can try to forget_

_I keep closing my eyes_

_But I can't block you out/_

Inuyasha tried to bring himself to rip Kagome off him, but he couldn't.

"Kagome, s-stop." He struggled with her, but she was stubborn and stayed permanently latched. "Kago-ME," warningly this time. "Let GO right NOW!"

_/Let me go_

_Let me go_

_To the corner and down/_

"No, YOU let go!" Kagome snapped, her tucked away face rising meet his baffled eyes. "Let go of your pride and stupidity for just one SECOND!"

Inuyasha blinked widely before rattling out another snarl, about to retort to old habits of howling a, **_'What the hell did you just say?!'_** until his blood dried up in his seams at the depressing portrait of Kagome's weepy face. She was still shivering to death and trying to keep her balance.

"You really think running away from me is going to save me from you, Inuyasha?! From Naraku, Sesshomaru, Kagura and whoever else?! Was that really your idiot plan all along?!" Kagome fisted the fabric of his Fire Rat between the groves of her fingers. "I FORGAVE you, Inuyasha! What you did wasn't your fault—"

"Wasn't my fault…? Wasn't my FAULT?! Are you dense, woman?! I ATTACKED you, Kagome! I made you BLEED!" Inuyasha bellowed, inches from her colorless face. "I BETRAYED you! If it wasn't my fault, then WHOSE was it, huh?! Who else betrayed and struck you down, knocking your lights out?!"

_/It is slow poison_

_It is making me crazy_

_But they say it's all my fault/_

"…Your demon blood." Kagome meekly murmured, inching closer in hopes to close the gap between their facial-boundaries. "…Not Inuyasha. The Inuyasha I know would never hurt me on purpose. He'd protect me with…w-with…"

"…His life," Inuyasha finished, an excruciating, yearning look situated on the border of his softened face. He looked so sternly hurt, Kagome wanted to cry even harder.

_/But I want her so much_

_Wanna fly her away _

_Where the sun and the run_

_Come in over my face,_

_Washing away all the shame/_

"…Then don't RUN from me if you know it!" Kagome pleaded, though with more attitude than anything below it. She suddenly choked and hiccupped on the raining tears, her vision fogging over as her legs almost gave out on her.

"Kagome, I want to protect you but…" Inuyasha sighed heftily, his chest falling. He swore under his breath when pain pricked him; he had forgotten the blood emptying from his lesion. "I came at you with MY claws—"

"Will you stop going on like that?!" Kagome's face was red with fury and swollen from tears. "I need you for more than protection!"

Inuyasha's black hair stood on end in a flurry of shock. "Y…You do?"

_/This…_

_Is…_

_Not…_

_Enough! /_

"YES, you stupid idiot!" Kagome balled her fists against his collarbone again, body quavering against the sharpness of the cold air that attacked her wrenching ribcage. "I…I need you WITH me! Haven't you realized that yet?!"

Inuyasha smelt the care and…and 'love' on he fragrance of her breath. Why did she sound so much like him on that fateful day when she pinned him to the Sacred Tree by her arrow?

_/All the things she said_

_All the things she said_

_Running through my head_

_Running through my head_

_All the things she said/_

"Is this just a silly game that makes you act this way, Inuyasha? Why do you always want to push me away! It could all be so simple, but you rather make it hard!" Kagome dipped her head into his collarbone, open-mouth sobbing all her feelings into his cold skin. "Care for me…you said you cared for me, you said you'd be there for m-me, you said you'd cry for me, die for me, you said you'd die for me…!"

"Oh for the love of GOD, I WILL die for you, Kagome!" Inuyasha's icy fingers seized her shoulders, though didn't tear her off him from that point on. "I pushed you away because I don't wanna fucking LOSE you! Don't you fucking get it?!"

_/And I'm all mixed up_

_Feeling cornered and rushed_

_But it's driving me mad/_

Inuyasha growled crossly after her response was nothing. The pitter-patters of remaining rainfall seeped into his eyes and altered his already dizzy vision and yet at the same time he felt a vague trace of life sting the white of his eyes in unison.

Kagome whimpered, making the half-demon backtrack on his words and regret his haughtiness.

"Loving you…is like battle, Inuyasha. And we both end up with scars. As painful as this has all been, I can't be with anyone else. No one's hurt me more than you and no one ever w-will. Where were you t-tonight when I sobbed for you? I almost DIED from s-sadness…" Her knees bent in spasm. She was growing weak. "Everything was so lonely...I was scared."

Inuyasha's heart had been stolen from his chest and torn in half right before him. His eyes throbbed insanely as if he would lose his mind in the next passing second. His breathing sounded stifled and eerily exhaled.

In shame, his mother was staring down on them in this instant with her fingers to her face in disenchantment.

_/Mother, looking at me_

_Tell me, what do you see?_

_Yes…_

_I've…_

_Lost…_

_My mind…/_

Kagome felt the rays of heat hammer into her head once the cold spilling of rain stopped. Her eyes flunked open, almost squealing to feel the sensation of Inuyasha's body pulsing against hers. She watched the black mane fade into a glittering silver, his jade eyes lighten into tawny yellow, and his ears elongate at the roof of his head. And yet, the scared and confused look never altered during the transformation unlike everything else…

As Inuyasha's shuddery breath kissed Kagome's paled cheeks, he shakily pried her from him, swallowing much too hard. "S-So then…I'm the one that's been…hurting you all this time, not the demons. I really am the monster."

"Inuyasha!" Kagome wheezed. "No, you misunderstood…don't take it like that."

_/Have…._

_I…_

_Crossed…_

_The line?_

_It is delirium_

_It is poison from the sun/_

"Save it, Kagome." Inuyasha violently disallowed her to speak with his sharp bark. "Don't try to take it back. Don't even dream of it." The hurt that danced on his accent and shone in his eyes were afflicting more pain upon her rib-wound.

_/This…_

_Is…_

_Not…_

_Enough!_

_All the things she said_

_All the things she said/_

…What now?

Sure, he had hurt her feelings many times, but it wasn't so severe to where he thought permanent distance would heal it.

"…That won't heal anything," Kagome thought aloud, suddenly grasping hold of his clawed hand.

"Wha…What are you d-doing now, wench?" Inuyasha panicked, readying to snatch his hand from her grip.

"I don't think," Kagome uncurled his fingers so they could be caressed to her cheek. She felt him cringe, but dismissed it. As her eyelashes settled down on her whitening cheeks, she hummed in warmth. "You're a monster. I never have. Even when you once threatened to kill me to get the jewel from me."

Inuyasha swallowed back a gasp to see wavering tears tickle down her stained face. He flinched to feel her closer, rain flinging off his drenched bangs that pasted down to his forehead. His golden eyes were like a vortex churn of emotions instead of a wall built between herself and his heart.

A long time ago, she had managed to breach that wall…and he'd lost himself in her ever since.

_/I've lost my mind_

_Ya Soshla S Uma_

_I've lost my mind_

_I need her_

_I need her_

_One, Two go after Five_

_I've lost my mind_

_Ya Soshla S Uma/_

Kagome breathed in a stale air.

As her big auburn eyes glistened with moisturized passion, she found herself bewitched to lean her face into his.

With her expression enchanted by the magic charm of the half-demon's eyes, she hesitantly reached out her small, numbed hands to rest them on Inuyasha's roughly smooth face.

Feeling the hot, boiling warmth soothe her palms, she sealed her eyes and stole his lips in the lock of hers.

Inuyasha's pupils shrunk into his orbs…

_/Wanna fly to a place_

_Where it's just you and me_

_Nobody else,_

_So we can be free_

_Without you I am not myself/_

Kikyo…had done the same thing awhile back.

And yet Kagome's lips were nothing like Kikyo's.

Her lips weren't cold with unfeeling, but hot and honey-sapped.

Inuyasha then tasted the salty liquid that strolled down in between their compressed mouths.

Kagome's tear.

His eyes, looking glassy and glazed, fell into a half-lidding.

_/…I want her so much_

_Wanna fly her away_

_Where the sun and the rain_

_Come in over my face_

_Wash away all the same_

_Without her there is no me/_

The silver-haired half-demon gradually began to drape his arms around her, closing his eyes and—

"KAGOME!"

Kilala spun her head around in the direction of Miroku's call. "Mew!"

"Ka-GOOOME! Where ARE you?! Pl-Please don't be deaaad!" Shippou's whiny voice echoed between the forest trees next.

They were near.

The alerting shouts caused Inuyasha to snap back from Kagome's gripping lips. She squeaked in surprised when his weight moved away from her. The half-breed walked rearwards again, eyes blazing with unreadable feeling and burdening her with agonizing remorse.

"Inuyasha," Kagome gulped in ache, trying not to topple over.

_/When I stop and stare_

_Doubt worrying me_

_Cause I'm feeling for her_

_What she's feeling for me_

_This…_

_Is…_

_Not…_

_Enough!_

_Ya Soshla S Uma_

_This _

_Is_

_Not_

_Enough!_

_All the things she said_

_All the things she said/_

"KAGOME, WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Without an, **_'I'm sorry, Kagome'_**, without a, **_'Goodbye'_** or **_'Farewell'_**, Inuyasha stole one last, longing look at her before hastening off through the trees.

Kagome stood there dumbly, her shaking hand positioned in the same pose for when she was readying to jolt after him.

As Miroku and the others emerged from the shrubberies, they gasped in alarm to see Kagome collapsing to her knees on the damp forest flooring. The gory red had returned, pooling underneath her from the incessantly bleeding streaks of crimson.

_/…Tell me,_

_What do you see?_

_Yes…_

_I've…_

_Lost…_

_My mind…_

_Will I ever be free?_

_Situation HELP_

_Situation SOS_

_I feel totally lost/_

"Kagome!" The group called simultaneously before they rushed to her side.

"Kagome, what happened? Why are you out here by yourself?! You could've been killed!" Sango asked frantically while tossing her fallen blanket over the shivering child.

"Yeah, Kagome, your blood scent is everywhere!" Shippou enlightened, trying to warm her. She was Arctic ice.

"I-Inuyasha…" Kagome muttered, sucking in sharply as she withdrew her fingers to gaze into the small hand to let her tears soak and flood into a small lake in her palm.

_/All the things you said_

_All the things you said_

_Running through my head_

_Running through my head_

_I can try to pretend_

_I can try to forget_

_But it's driving me mad_

_Going out of my…_

_Head…! /_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Inuyasha sat his back against the Sacred Tree's trunk, smiling humorlessly under his dangling bangs with his head tipped down to stare at his healing bosom. He closed his eyes, eyebrows wrinkled back on his forehead as the clouds' earlier tears leapt off his strands of silver hair.

Tetsusaiga pulsated with Inuyasha's heartbeat.

"I know, Old man, I know…" he admitted to the sword. "Protecting Kagome is the only way I can wield Tetsusaiga, but…"

_/Daddy, _

_Looking at me_

_Tell me, what do you see?_

_Will I ever be free?_

_Have I crossed the line?/_

The half-dog demon hugged the sword closer to his heart, his hair draping over the handle. "…I can't go back. Not now. Just…not yet. But…" Inuyasha's lips curled into a weakened smile as he closed his eyes in faked peace of mind. "…when I learn how to master my demon blood, Kagome…I'll never leave you again."

_/Mom_

_Dad_

_Forgive me_

_This_

_Is_

_Not_

_Enough_

_Ya Soshla S Uma_

_All the things she said_

_All the things she said/_


	5. A Beautiful Disaster

_**"A Beautiful Disaster" **_

**_Champter Summay: A fight on the day of Valentines Day doesn't bode well with Kagome. Inuyasha, finally understanding the reason of her temper, decides to look for some help on the best way to apologize. He never expected to be getting it from Sota AND Kagome's little friends. And who the hell's HOJO?! _**

**Disclaimer: **_I thought you all deserved a chapter with some fluffiness instead of constant depression. Enjoy! I think you'll like this!_

_**Song Used - Ai no Uta - Song of Love - Inuyasha Theme**_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Miroku sighed.

Sango sighed.

Shippou sighed.

"Alright, _Kago-me! _Spit it out! You've been acting weirder than normal lately and it's really tickin' me off!"

"Ticking YOU off? Oh, well is that so? Then excuse me for hurting your FEELINGS! -- ACK, you're such a jerk sometimes! You don't understand anything I try to explain to you!"

"AYE! What you goin' biting off my head for?! I didn't do anything wrong! How the hell am _'I'_ supposed to get what Valley-Time is?!"

"Inuyasha, you did EVERYTHING wrong and you know it! And it's VAL-EN-TINES!"

"Ouit your whining, Wench! I ain't done a damn thing wrong, God damn it! You're just over-exaggeratin' like usual!"

"Y'think we should start counting?" Shippou yawned.

"I believe we should..." Miroku gave a nod of pity.

"One..." Sango drawled out.

"Two..." Shippou hummed after, the tone of restless ennui matching Sango's.

"Inu-_YASHA_."

"U-Uh..Wait, K-KAGOME! L-Let's talk this o-over!"

Kirara mewed out the finalizing, "Three."

**_Thud. _**

"D'OOOH!"

"SIT, SIT, SIT, SIT, SIT BOY! SIT, SIT, SIT! SIIIT BOY!"

Inuyasha's body butted into the rocky earth about ten or nine times in one round as the gravity of the rosary hex dug him an even deeper hole with apiece 'Sit'. His yippy yaps of steep pain were enough to have Shippou clamping his tiny palms down on his ears.

Kagome was left breathless after her string of demanding words, her chest heaving and her eyes stinging red. She almost resembled Inuyasha's pure-demon form.

Inuyasha's legs and arms twitched, hinting off the numbing spasms his muscles were undergoing right now.

"That's it, that's it, THAT'S IT!" Kagome spun an eighty-degree angle on her tippy toe, hair whirling around behind her back. "I'm going home!" her fisted hands stayed at her sides as she marched off into the bearing of the Bone Eater's Well. "And DON'T bother coming after me!"

_'Like hell I'd even dream of it...'_ "C-Conniving W-Wench..." Inuyasha slithered out weakly, tone of voice trembling.

"And you've done it again, my ignorant friend." Miroku folded his dangling sleeves over his torso, a puff of breath emitting from his lips after his sigh. "Really, you ought to make a habit of NOT insulting poor Kagome's feelings, that way it'll save you both the pain."

"Y-You're one to talk, you l-lecher..." Inuyasha countered as he shakily rose up form his ground body-imprint. "D-Damn that_ Kagome_...I didn't even deserve it this time! What the hell's gotten into her!? One moment's she's in a starry-eyed gaze while explaining this...this...'Valley-Time' crap to me, and then the next she's sending me into an early grave!" He yanked on the rosary beads.

"No kidding," Shippou leered smugly as he eyed the concave hole Inuyasha, or rather Kagome, had created.

"There's your answer, then." Sango stepped beside Miroku, looking rather aggravated. She pointed up an acknowledging finger. "You never seem to take Kagome's feelings into consideration, do you? Are you really that deaf and blind, Inuyasha?"

"What the hell's THAT supposed to mean?!" Inuyasha bayed like a rabid pitbull, but it didn't dent Sango's own irritation.

The crook of Sango's lip quirked up as she angrily closed her eyes, wishing she had the power to activate that lovely rosary. "What I'm saying is you can hear and see everything else a hundred times better than a mere human, and yet you can't accomplish the same with Kagome's heart?"

"D'uhh..." Inuyasha blinked, making that little dumbfounded noise he emanated when he was innocently clueless. He then bared his scowl at her, "What on earth are you babbling about? My senses are just fine, but thanks for ASKING!"

"Heh, and they say canines are loyal and kind to their masters. Inuyasha's on a short leash and yet he STILL refuses to obey Kagome. Can't teach an old dog new tricks." Shippou noted smartly, unaware of Inuyasha's shadowing presence.

"Why you little runt! I'll show YOU a new trick! It's called making Shippou DISAPPEAR!" Inuyasha stretched the little kistune's cheeks strenuously, two veins popping across his temples.

"LEMME GO, LEMME GO, LEMME GO, YOU CREEEP!" Shippou sobbed, squirming for escape.

Miroku and Sango sweat-dropped in defeat.

Trying to change the matter, Miroku threw in, "So what is this 'Valentines' thing, anyway?"

Sango gave out a thoughtful, 'hm' while posing a finger to her chin's peak. "Well, Kagome told me it's a day where love is celebrated."

Inuyasha's right ear fanned in Sango's direction.

Sango continued onward, "Apparently lovers exchange gifts to one another. If they aren't lovers, they trade gifts for one another's hearts. You have to ask, 'Will you be my Valentine' or something like that to your love interest, I believe."

"Sango..." Miroku suddenly slid up before the Demon Slayer, her hand situated between his clasp. His cobalt eyes opened sternly to her reddening face, "Will you be my Valentine?"

Sango sweat-dropped. "...This some type of joke, because it's not funny, Miroku."

"...A day of celebration for love?" Inuyasha stopped in mid-Shippou-attack, his ears still twiddling. "Keh!" He tried to act as if he wasn't fascinated when all attention was drawn to him. "What a waste of time over stupid mushy stuff! You humans are so overruled by your pathetic emotions."

"Says the one that's into dead girls," Shippou muttered while rubbing his swollen cheeks.

"WHAT was that, Shippou?" Inuyasha crossed Shippou a sinister grin.

"I-I said no wonder Kagome was so upset! She wanted you to be her Valentine, Inuyasha!"

"...Her wha-wha?" Inuyasha's lips slumped into a low, undefined line of pure puzzlement.

"Weren't you even listening to Sango?" Miroku interlocked his arms over his chest once more, a dark eyebrow rearing back on his forehead.

"Oh and like you were?" Inuyasha grumbled, feeling overly embarrassed at the spotlight. "Or were you tryna make an opening pass at Sango, you Lecherous Monk?"

"...Ehe..." Miroku sweat dropped as Sango glared dirtily at him, causing him to retract an infamous wandering hand.

"Shesh, you're one corner short of a pentagon, Inuyasha!" Shippou nudged out his tongue, expertly dodging Inuyasha's fist. "Kagome wants you to give her something from your HEART!"

"...From my heart?" Inuyasha pressed a quizzical hand to his chest, eyebrows knitted backwards. "Like WHAT, a blood vessel?"

"Have you neither romance nor compassion, Inuyasha?" Miroku waved his finger to and fro, 'tsk'-ing. "Shame on you. What Shippou means is a gift of love. Something that means a lot to you that you can pass onto Kagome. Something she'll never forget! ...Isn't that right, my dear Sango?" Miroku nuzzled his cheek against Sango's hand dreamily.

...Sango's expression screwed up. "In your DREAMS, Monk." She bashed him upside the head.

"Uhhh..." Inuyasha continued to blink, a sweat droplet or two pasted to his brow.

His brain hurt.

A lot.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**( - Homeroom Period - )**

"Why that impudent, insensitive, cold-blooded JERK!" Kagome ranted to herself, still fuming as she sat impatiently in her homeroom class. She was growling so ferociously, she had officially outdone Inuyasha's.

"...Hey, Kagome?" Eri waved her hand in front of her friend's blazed eyes, sweat dropping. "EARTH to Kagome!"

"...Wha?!" Kagome snapped from the spell of her daze dumbly, blushing in humiliation.

"What planet are you on, Pluto?" Yuka teased, checking Kagome's forehead for a fever. "You're hot!"

"Yeah, with anger! Were you muttering about your delinquent boyfriend just now or what?" Eri bent inwards, outrageously curious.

"Uh-oh, did something happen between you two, Kagome? You're really overheated." Ayumi detected, linking her fingers together.

Kagome's eyes shifted guiltily. "Well--"

"OH! Speaking of boyfriends, did he give you a Valentines present yet?" Eri beamed.

"Uhh, well..." Kagome poked her fingertips together. "Not...exactly..."

"WHAT?!" Eri and Yuka gasped, drawn back in devastation.

"Just what kind of boyfriend IS this guy?! No gift on Valentines Day?!" Yuka squealed.

"Well you have to remember that the day's only begun. He'll probably give you something after school, right?" Ayumi optimistically encouraged instead of belittling.

"You're right, of course." Kagome sweat dropped._ 'More like YEAH right.' _

"Tch, I DOUBT it." Eri set her hands on her hips arrogantly.

"Hey, what about Hojo?" Yuka whispered as if it were a secret to mention the boy's name on this special day.

"What about him?" Kagome expressed her obliviousness openly to them all.

"What about him? What ABOUT him? Kagome, are you serious?" Yuka blinked, shocked. "He's totally got the hots for you and there's no doubt that in the next few seconds he'll come strolling over and--"

"Hey, Kagome!"

_'Drats, Yuka, you jinxed it.'_ Kagome panicked.

The four girls wearily rotateded their heads on a dim axis to the clueless blue-eyed Hojo.

"There you are; I've been looking all over for you!" The brunette beamed at her, eyes closed upwards happily. The world seemed to glitter and flurry around his aura, while the world seemed to grey and diffuse around Kagome's.

"I've...been sitting here this whole time, Hojo." Kagome pointed out, practically under her breath._ 'We have the same homeroom class, after all.'_

Hojo hadn't seemed to hear her. "So, how's your Chicken Pox doing? All gone now?"

Kagome's anger pulsed._ 'Graaandpa...'_ She covered it with a fraud smile, "Yep, all better now, ehe."

"So then...you won't mind if I came over this afternoon, will you?"

The three girls mentally gasped.

"H-Huh? Well, uh..." Kagome was supposed to return back to Inuyasha's era after school, but...

"I mean, if it's not too much trouble--"

"NO, of course not!" Yuka and Eri squealed in joy, answering for Kagome. "She'd be glad to accept!"

"I would?" Kagome invested the ceiling for answers. _'Then again, Inuyasha and I ARE in a fight. He's surely not going to wanna be my Valentine, so...I guess it wouldn't hurt to not be alone on Valentines Day, right? Right.' _She recovered from her conscience-conversation and balled her hand into a determined fist. "I mean of COURSE I would! Hojo, it's a date!"

Eri and Yuka blinked concurrently._ 'Really?! Maybe she's getting over her delinquent boyfriend after all...'_

"Great!" Hojo's hopes lifted aflight on new wings. "So then I'll pick you up at six, okay?"

"K...Kay," Kagome forced a sugary smile, automatically regretting her acceptance.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"I know Sis got 'em in here somewhere!" little Sota tip-toed into Kagome's bedroom, rummaging through her drawers quietly.

"Ddn't your Mom teach you not to go diggin' around in other people's stuff?"

The crotchety voice startled Sota to death.

"I DIDN'T DO IT, HONEEEEST! IT WAS BUYO!" Sota pointed accusingly at his obese cat, eyes closed tightly for whatever blow might come.

Buyo flattened his ears before slugging out of the room with a lazy mew.

As silence weighed down on Sota, he pried one eye open and then the next. "In...Inuyasha?!" He just scarcely managed to grab his breath as he stared at the silver-haired half demon alighted on Kagome's windowsill. "Wha...What are you doing in h-here?"

"I could be asking you the same thing, _So-ta_." Inuyasha fined his eyes condemningly.

"I-I was just looking for...something that Mom wanted me to get! But if you're looking for Sis, sh-she's at school!"

"Keh!" Inuyasha grunted while digging his pinky into his left dog ear. "I know THAT! I just dropped in because I needed your, uh...a-advice on somethin'." Inuyasha turned his eyes to the ceiling, a splatter of red blended in his cheeks.

"...Advice?"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Ohh, so THAT'S what happened." Sota chuckled after Inuyasha filled in the details of last night.

"Now hang on a sec', what's so funny?! If I knew you were gonna laugh I woulda kept it to myself!" Inuyasha positioned his hand on his crossed leg, looking rather bothered and flustered in one turn. He turned away with folded arms. "HMPH! I knew I shouldn't have told you!"

"Aw c'mon, Inuyasha. Don't be like that." Sota jerked on his sleeve beseechingly. "I just find it silly that Sis got so upset over something so little. I guess you two really are dating, huh?"

"HUUUUH?!" Inuyasha practically shrieked, almost skydiving into the carpet. He grinned humorlessly to contain his blazing temper as his eyebrow continued to quirk, growling through gritted fangs, "I never said anything like THAT, you little brat!"

_'Inuyasha, you're cool and all, but seriously...grow up.'_ "Well anyway, what didja need my help on?"

"I didn't say I needed your HELP, I just...needed...a few...'suggestions', y-yeah!" Inuyasha nudged his hands into the sleeves of his haori, clearing his throat as the embarrassment still loitered on his cheeks to match his Fire Rat.

Sota waited on Inuyasha to finish, but he never did. As he sighed, he stood from the bed. "I see."

"D'uh?" Inuyasha blinked uncountable times. "S..See what?"

"I'll help you apologize to Kagome by getting her a gift for Valentines Day."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

( **- After School -** )

"Well, I better be off. Don't wanna be late meeting Hojo later on." Kagome waved at her friends, that coy smile still on her cheeks. "S-So...see ya!" She hurried along the pavement without her friends' farewells and soon slowed her pace once she was a good distance from the white of their eyes.

"...Do you think she's still upset over that Inuyasha guy?" Ayumi compressed a thoughtful finger to her lip, scanning the faces of her companions.

"It's so obvious that she is." Eri sighed with a hopeless smile. "Kagome's so head over heels that she's letting this whole Valentines problem bug her."

Yuka gazed after the emptied path Kagome took. "I wonder if this'll screw things up for her and Hojo's date."

"Or worse, what if her BOYFRIEND finds out?" Eri shuddered in visualization of what Kagome's 'violent boyfriend' would do to poor, fragile Hojo. _'Break him in two, that's what.'_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

( **- City Streetwalk - **)

"Now lookit here, you little Shippou-incarnation." Inuyasha rapsed iratedly under his breath, sunshine eyes shadowed by the visor of Sota's baseball cap. "You never said I'd have to be dragged all over your stupid village like this!"

"Aw c'mon, Inuyasha." Sota only guffawed, clearly unfazed by the half-demon's shrewd attitude. "You want to get something special for Sis, don't you?"

"And?! I could've just made something with my bare hands!" Inuyasha fumed.

"Without breaking it? Yeah right." Sota scathingly smirked, eyes thinned with dubiousness.

Inuyasha reached out a clawed hand, "Why you--"

"Hey, what about this place!?" Sota quickly leaked in to redirect Inuyasha's loathe. He pointed at the jewelry store before their feet.

"Keh!" Inuyasha angled his head away, obviously uninterested. "Kagome doesn't even wear that fancy stuff, so what'll change now?"

"Are you kiddin'? Girls love things like this!"

"...Well Kagome isn't like every other girl." Inuyasha answered more to himself with an uncomfortable flush attacking the barrier around his cheeks. "...Unfortunately," he grumbled in to save the last morsels of his pride.

"Then what do you suggest?" Sota tapped his cheek in contemplation.

"...Hm..." Inuyasha stuck his nose in the air, catching a whiff of a familiar fragrance. "It smells like Kagome."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"THIS smells like Kagome to you?" Sota inspected as Inuyasha ruthlessly grabbed onto a branch and lowered it down to their level, scooping up a horde of Sakura blossoms.

"And Jasmines." The half-demon grinned cockily, self-assured that he found the perfect and simplest gift that entailed no work at all. He then slanted a grimace at Sota. "This IS what girls like, isn't it? Stupid flowers that smell good? Mushy crap like that?"

"Uh, yeah. I guess, but don't you wanna get Kagome something a little more non-cliche--HEY! Wait, Inuyasha!" Sota desperately held out a begging hand to see the half-demon jog into a flower shop.

"Hey, Lady!" Inuyasha leant over the counter, his casually hardened face staring up at the wavy-haired young woman on the opposite side of the stand. "You got any Jasmines in here I could get?"

"Uh...no, I don't think we do." The brown-haired fifteen year old cocked an eyebrow at Inuyasha, as if trying to sort out his features.

"WHAT?! What the hell do you mean, 'Uh, no, I don't think we do'?!" Inuyasha mocked her innocent voice poorly. "What kind of flower shop IS this if it doesn't have stupid FLOWERS? I ain't got much time here, woman!"

Sota just thwacked himself in the forehead, cheeks rising with scarlet embarrassment. Now he understood why his sister didn't want him in public all the time; his people skills were just off.

The brown-haired female just seemed to blink up at the silver-haired stranger, keeping her composure. "Nooow I remember!" she chirped.

"Huh?" Inuyasha's temper decaded. "What are you going on about now?"

"You're Kagome's boyfriend! How could I forget those gold eyes and silver white hair?" She giggled, giving Inuyasha's forelock a little tug. "I'm Ayumi, remember?"

"DOESN'T--" he snatched his hair from her toying adoration. "--ring a bell! So if you don't mind, I'll just take my hair and go--"

"Really?" Ayumi smiled anyhow, almost as sweetly as Kagome would. "You came in through Kagome's window and met me, Eri and Yuka in her bedroom."

"...Hey, wait a sec'." Inuyasha looked up at the cracked ceiling for a flashback opening. "Oh yeah, you'e one of THOSE girls."

"So let me guess! You're here looking for a Valentines present for Kagome, am I right?" Ayumi held her cheeks in awareness of Inuyasha's sakura blossoms, as if envisaging the most romantic daydream between he and Kagome. "Ohh, how romantic!"

"Uhh..." Inuyasha sweat dropped, cocking his temple in disturbance of her heart-eyed expression. "...Did I miss something?"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Almost right after the encounter with Ayumi, the wavy-haired girl had called up Eri and Yuka to 'cook up' some plans for Inuyasha's Valentines Day.

"Ohh, so you really are sweet!" Yuka giggled as she tucked her chin on top of her hands, elbows set on the table they all sat around. "You went through all that trouble of climbing a tree to get your own Sakuras?" she complimented, eyeing the cluster of wrapped blossoms.

Inuyasha just blinked awkwardly. "Well...yeah. Like hell I'm buyin' something I can get with my own two hands." His lip then twitched a bit, showing his evident intolerance of small talk, but he tried to remain polite anyway. He didn't need more 'Sit's' from Kagome. "So can someone explain to me why I'm here again?"

"To help you with your plans for Kagome, DUH, silly!" Eri winked, holding up a knowing finger. "You're in GOOD hands, Mister Inuyasha! VERY good hands!"

Sota just sat be side the half-demon, sipping on his Smoothie contently._ 'Shoot, Inuyasha needs all the help he can get.'_

"Uh...okay?" The half-demon sweat dropped.

Ayumi yanked on Inuyasha's sleeve in examination of his clothing.

"HEY, hey, hey, hey, hey!" Inuyasha tugged it out of her grasp, growling. "What IS it with you?! You got a fetish with touchin' me or somethin'?!"

"You're not gonna wear that tonight, are you?" Ayumi's question seemed severely crucial to her.

"Oh God, no! You'll have to do better than THAT!" Yuka wrinkled her nose at the attire, arms crossed.

Inuyasha looked as if to mock her; his hands still stuffed in his sleeves like he were challenging an opponent. "Keh, and why not? Kagome never complains, so why the hell should I change?"

"Because this is a SPECIAL day! Don't you wanna look handsome and jaw-dropping?" Yuka caressed her cheek, imagining Inuyasha dressed in a red button-up blouse and black trousers. "Ohh, how dreamy!"

Inuyasha exchanged petrified looks with Sota.

Both mentally agreed Kagome's friends out-weirded her to the max.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

(** - Clothing Store -** )

"You've GOT to be KIDDING me!!" Inuyasha roared out, horrified by the new clothing the girls had sheathed his body with; a red chest-hugging short-sleeved shirt that exposed much of his collarbone and black trousers.

"Aw, you look so DASHING!" Ayumi endorsed as her hands clasped.

"Totally cute!" Eri straightened out his collar. "You're really...burly."

"Kagome would melt!" Yuka giggled, eyes closed upwards in happiness with their accomplishment. "Don't you think so too, Sota?"

Sota, however, was on the sidelines trying to eat back his furious laughter. "Y-Yeah, n-natural Prince Charming!"

"However, you are NOT wearing that cap--"

"ARGH!" Inuyasha's face was so red, his skin looked fried and ready to rupture. His tolerance had been cooked and roasted for long enough. "Get these damn clothes OFFA ME!" He was about to rip it all to shreds in front of the store manager, until the girls frantically stopped his flailing arms.

"Pipe DOWN, wouldja?! We have to hide!" Yuka shushed him as the three girls lugged him behind the curtains of the changing stall.

"H-Hey, wait for me!" Sota stumbled after.

"What the hell are we hiding in HERE for?" Inuyasha continued to bark, his rage feeding off how crammed they were in the small stall. He tried to work at the clothing meanwhile. "I don't smell any demons!"

"Is that some type of joke?" Eri furrowed her eyebrows. "We're hiding because--"

"...Ka...gome...?" Inuyasha's temper wore down as her aroma inflated his nostrils. He wriggled through the girls and peered his head out a bit, seeing the very girl a few feet away. "What's SHE doing here?"

Kagome was busy twirling in the mirror, hip-turning left to right to examine the outfit she had fitted into. He gulped, her graceful movement making bumblebees, not butterflies, poke as the innards of his stomach.

Inuyasha's cheeks flared as red as the roses attached to her wristband and ribbon that she wore.

It really hadn't looked like his Kagome for a second...just for a second. And no, not Kikyo either.

Absentmindedly recording her every move with much detail, Inuyasha noted that it looked nice on her. It was a laced-white tank top that sketched out the roundness of her chest and then a pleated skirt to match. The white ribbons that styled her hair back into a high pony tail was rather cute. Her bangs were even brushed out.

"What's she getting all dressed up for?" Yuka's voice intervened with Inuyasha's sight-seeing as she peeked out from underneath his chin, Eri and Ayumi following.

"This looks nice and simple. Maybe he'll like it." Kagome smiled bashfully at the reflection of herself in the body mirror.

_'He?'_ Inuyasha blinked, blushing once more. Was she talking about him? Did she plan to go see him tonight all dressed up...just for him?

Kagome held a hand to her heart, her eyes shuddering as if something heart-swelling had pricked at her happy mindset. "Inu...yasha." she worded silently, but Inuyasha's sensitive ears caught the whisper as it swooped in on him.

_'She...said my name.'_ The half demon gulped, more cherry than his Fire Rat could ever brighten to be._ 'I...Is she really thinking about me on this stupid mushy Valentines Day thing? It must really be important to her.' _

The quiet group watched Kagome sigh and turn into their direction. In a fleeting panic, they all retracted their heads back behind the drapes. Inuyasha cringed at the possibility of being caught in public.

His back would be out for a week!

His ear flickered beneath his cap, hearing Kagome settle into the stall beside them.

_'Whew!'_ Sota's mind relished in the flavor of relief._ 'That was a close one...' _He twisted his head up to Inuyasha, only to almost fall over in disbelief to see the half-demon peeking over the top of Kagome's stall._ 'What the heck does he think he's doing?! Is he tryna get us all killed?!' _

Inuyasha blinked naively at the raven-haired Kagome from his leverage.

Kagome chimed a song to herself as she reached for her school clothing, _"If I try to saaave him, My whole world could caaave in, Do I try to chaaange him, So hard not to blaaame him, Oh 'cause I dooon't know, don't know what he's after, But he's so beeeauti-ful, such a beautiful disaaa-ster, and if I could hold on, through the tears and laaaugh-ter, would it be beeeauti-ful? Or just a beautiful disaster?" _

The half-demon's blinks ceased into softness as he surveyed her clothed form once more. His ears then flattened against his scalp. He wondered if she made that song up to intentionally be about him, though he was sure she didn't think he was 'beautiful'.

Kagome whipped her hair back after releasing it from the ribbons, sighing out her musical theme, "_He's a tradegy with more damage than a soul should see, I'm longing for love and the logical, but he's only happy hysterical, I'm waiting for some kind of miracle, he's never enough, and still he's more than I can take..." _

Thoughts flooded into the crack of Inuyasha's mind.

What was it that he could give to her that she didn't already have?

"What are we gonna do now? We've got everything, so we should pack up and leave right now!" Yuka planned out with her girlfriends.

"But without her spotting us? How?!" Eri yelpled.

Kagome stopped in mid-song while she undressed. "Hey, wait just a minute now..."

Inuyasha flinched as his nerves fried his hair for a split moment, his pupils shrinking into withdrawn saucers.

"Those voices sound awfully familiar!" She gasped aloud, suddenly 'eep'-ing as a pink blossom petal landed delicately on her nose. Kagome looked up in a sudden rush, seeing nothing but the store's ceiling. "...Huh?" Unsatisfied, she knocked on the stall's wall beside her. "Hello? Anyone in there?"

No answer.

No shuffling.

No nothing.

Her...imagination, maybe?

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Way, way, WAAAY too close!" Sota exhaled in a fury of pants as he slid down an alley wall as well as Kagome's friends.

"You're telling ME..." Yuka wheezed.

"GOD that was close...and did I mention that was too close?" Sota babbled on between his coughs before glaring daggers into Inuyasha's back. Suddenly, he wrenched on the half-demon's sleeve after stepping into his turf boundary, Kagome's temper imitating off his eyes. "Inuyasha you almost got us CAUGHT! Way to go! That was way too--"

"CLOSE, okay, we get the damn picture, you little brat!" Inuyasha's temperamental grin twitched. "Damn, you and Shippou would be the best of friends! You both share one common hobby: annoying the HELL outta ME!"

Sota just pouted and withdrew a little. He was the one to attack the half-demon, after all. "W-Well can we just go now? We got the sakuras AND the gear that 'I' had to pay for with the money I was saving up!"

"Ain't like I ASKED you to!" Inuyasha underlined, feeling like he was being accused all over again.

"I never said that!" Sota whined. "I'm just...Oh let's just go home already!"

"Keh! Fine by me! I'm done runnin' up and down your stupid village, anyway!"

"Sooo," Yuka popped up in front of Inuyasha, following Ayumi and Eri.

"Hm?" Inuyasha's eye flinched at the sudden teenaged faces in his way, a sweat drop kissing his temple. "...Can I HELP you?"

"You'll kiss her tonight?" Ayumi asked hopefully.

"HUH?!" Inuyasha's voice crackled a little as he flew backwards, eyes bulging and cheeks burning out steam.

"You're gonna KISS her, right?" Eri repeated for Ayumi.

Inuyasha strained to regain his cool ego as he straightened up and linked his arms once more, head swished to the side in attitude. "I-I-I don't remember saying anything about some s-s-stupid KISS!"

"Wow," Eri eased her excitement into disappointment. "Inexperienced type, huh? I guess that's no surprise."

Inuyasha's ear flailed.

Yuka huffed, "Yeah, I thought he'd at least be the type to make a move like a REAL guy would."

...A vein accompanied his fuzzy white ear.

Ayumi turned to her girlfriends, "Maybe he's just shy?"

"GRAH!" Inuyasha exploded with wrath, pointing furiously at the batch of girls in an exaggerated pose. "I am NOT shy or inexperienced or a WIMP! I never said I WOULDN'T kiss Kagome! I just said I didn't MENTION it!"

The three girls only blinked, a bit taken aback, but then exchanged glances with one another before encouraging through beams, "Then good luck! We have faith in you!"

"Hn?" the half-demon settled down, seeing a new light to her friends. He scratched his temple a bit. "Well thanks I guess...Hey, w-wait!" Finally, what he had formerly admitted seeped in.

"AH! It's almost six, Inuyasha! WE better go! U-Uh, bye Kagome's friends!" Sota waved sheepishly before dragging Inuyasha along.

"Bye!" The girls chimed.

"...Hey guys?" Ayumi spoke after the silence had graviated long enough. "...Wasn't Hojo supposed to come over Kagome's at six?"

"..."

The whole city clamped their ears to hear the squeals of, "OH NOOO!!"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Inuyasha leaped into Kagome's bedroom through the window with Sota clinging to his back.

"Remind me why we're coming in through the window again?" Sota was set down with the bags on the bedroom carpet.

Inuyasha rolled his eyes, looking down on Kagome's kid-brother as if he were the dumbest creature to breathe and live to tell it. "So Kagome won't get any funny ideas, Stupid! What would we look like coming in through the front? That'll blow the whole thing!"

Sota gave Inuyasha a knowing smile, which officially bugged the hell out of him.

"And just what are you smiling all smugly for?" Inuyasha blurted.

Sota just shook his head, nonetheless grinning again. "You put a lot of thought into this, didn't you? You put up with Kagome's friends and got a new batch of blossoms on the way home. You really wanna make this special, huh?"

Inuyasha's face was glowing neon crimson again. He fidgeted and snarled. "Well hell, I ain't gonna let all this effort go to waste by RUINING it!"

"Well..." Sota pulled out the clothing and shoes. "Let's get this on you."

Inuyasha stared as a blue shade of irritation clouded over the bridge of his nose. He looked up at the ceiling pleading, "Aw man..." - and stayed in that same pitying posture until he was entirely re-dressed into the attire suited on him earlier today.

Before Sota could comment, he realized just how stiff-legged the half-demon had suddenly gotten. He blinked, leaning his head to the side to view Inuyasha's hardened face. "Inu...yasha? What's up? Your ears are veering all over the place."

"There's someone else here..." Inuyasha informed, solemnity marking its scent in his vocal box.

"Well yeah, Grandpa, Mom and Sis."

"No, there's another scent mixed with theirs." Without putting much afterthought into it, Inuyasha dashed for the door.

"No, Inuyasha!" Sota chased right after him._ 'If he keeps this up next time I'm buyin' a LEASH!' _

"Kagome, you look stunning!"

The male voice that rang through Inuyasha's eardrums was like sheer trauma. His fangs gritted as he took in every syllable of Kagome's syrupy response:

"You look handsome yourself, Hojo!"

_'Hojo? Who the hell's HOJO?'_ Inuyasha's inner demon howled out. He stopped at the top of the stairs to eavesdrop on what was unfolding at the doorway.

The half-demon's heart nearly detonated with a bomb of jealousy to see a smiling, brown-haired Hojo's eyes fixated upon a flushed, raven-haired Kagome in adoration. The world first went a fading grey and then slowly lit into envious red.

"I got you this from my backyard." Hojo presented a basket of sakuras to Kagome. "You said you always preferred sakuras over cliche roses."

"Oh wow, you remembered!" Kagome smiled and was most definitely not faking her interest this time. "They're so beautiful, too!"

"Just like you have presented yourself tonight." He accoladed confidently, winking.

Inuyasha felt his appendix rupture. His muscles bunched and his face was going blue at the ire beating on his chest. _'J-Just what..in the hell...does he think he's DOING?! AND he got her SAKURAS?!'_

"S-So...what do you have planned for tonight?" Kagome cleared her throat, wondering why the air had felt so thick and impure to inhale. _'It's almost like Inuyasha's glaring daggers into the back of my head...which is impossible, because he's not here!'_ She smiled gravely to herself.

"Well, the pier is open and the weather isn't bad, so..." Hojo was seeing pink and feeling contracting heat all at once when his eyes bashfully found the floor. He rubbed the back of his noggin.

"Sounds like fun!" Kagome obliged, actually excited.

_'She's actually EXCITED!'_ Inuyasha's head screamed, his eye convulsing in incredulity. _'How...how COULD she fall for a weakling like that?! Don't tell me she STILL gets off to this kinda thing!' _the half-demon's chain of rant and rave was put on solid hold once he heard Kagome yell a, 'Goodbye' to her family and exited the household with said 'Hojo'.

"Um, Inuyasha?" Sota slipped out from behind his quavering back.

"D-Damn him...I can't believe it...he...he...that bastard!" Inuyasha's fist shook with absolute loathe. His death grip of the blossoms had been held by a pleated, sparkling wrap. "There's no way I'm letting that HOBO weakling get away with Kagome!!" Inuyasha's knuckles crackled as he stretched the muscles in his fingers, displaying just how sharp his talons were. "C'MON, Sota! You're comin' with me!"

"Wh-What?! Why ME?! She's YOUR w-woman!" Sota swallowed like the Shikon Jewel had been stuck in his throat.

"Will you just come on you little Shippou-incarnation!" Inuyasha ignored that comment for now and jerked the scampering Sota up by the back-collar of his shirt.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

( **- Pier Side - **)

"Oh, wooow..." Kagome cooed at the dazzling multi-colored lights of illumination that lit up the Ferris wheel and Roller Coaster Park.

"It's so pretty at night, wouldn't you agree?" Kagome smiled in gratitude at the kind-hearted boy whilst they strolled into the amusement park. _'If only Inuyasha could take me to places like this...what am I saying, they don't even have places like this in his era!'_

"Are you cold any, Kagome?" Hojo pronounced her name slowly, cherishing every syllable evidently.

Kagome sweat-dropped a bit, feeling pathetic that she couldn't return his vibe. "A little, yeah. If I had known we'd be going to a place like this I wouldn't have worn a skirt and tank top."

"Here." Hojo draped his jacket around her thin shoulders, holding a hand to her arm and massaging it here and there.

Kagome flushed to herself secretively, blinking with a type of dilation to her surprised eyes. "Uhh, thanks, Hojo..." she thanked through ropes of fake laughter.

"I can smell 'em not too far from here!" Inuyasha's nose snuffled over the ground of cotton candy and popcorn, tailing after the 'couple' on all fours and leaving a mortified Sota to tag farther behind. "C'mon, Sota! Stop wastin' time already!" The half-demon ordered over his shoulder. "Who knows what the hell they're doing right about now!"

"I-I don't know you!" Sota pretended, obviously embarrassed by all the stares.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

( - **Ferris Wheel -** )

"It's so crowded on Valentines Day!" Kagome explained as she pointed out the shuffling masses of people below them that resembled ant colonies from the Ferris wheel that elevated them higher into the indigo sky.

"A lot of people are in love." Hojo joked, sitting on Kagome's end of the seats.

"Hm..." Kagome's smile almost saddened in the riveting memory of Inuyasha's smirk, glinting sunlight eyes and dancing mane of silvery white. _'I wonder what Inuyasha's thinking about right now...'_

"Ripping off that god damn Homo's lips," Inuyasha snarled behind his fangs as if to answer Kagome's daydreaming mind.

He and Sota were one cart above Kagome and Hojo.

"His name's 'Hojo', by the way." Sota yawned sleepily, nestling down.

"Yeah, okay...WHATEVER. All I know is that HOBO needs to stay the hell away from KAGOME!" The half-demon stained the little boy with his death glare. Soon after, he engaged back to the scene below him in a frenzy of eagerness. "Wha! Did...D-Didja see that?! H..He put his around her! The bastard put his ARM around KAGOME! Oh THAT'S it--"

"Man, you've got it bad..." Sota just stared at his comrade, boredom waltzing around in his dark eyes in phantom ballets.

"...Huh...?" At this, the fire-headed Inuyasha calmed the muscles in his fistings. "What do y'mean?"

Sota gave him a dry glance before smacking his temple. "That you got it bad! You went through all the trouble of running around town for Kagome and now here we are, SPYING on her DATE because you're jealous when she's not even officially yours. I mean, are you sure you two aren't boyfriend and girlfriend or just hopelessly in lov--"

Inuyasha bopped him on the head, facial muscles itching. "SAVE IT!"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

When the Ferris Wheel ride came to a close, Hojo and Kagome spent their time on games to win prizes of stuffed animals. Kagome giggled wholeheartedly as Hojo handed her a white puppy after winning it over for her. Inuyasha was left on the sidelines strangling the life out of a Unicorn Sota had won until the beady black eyes bulged out of their sockets.

They went through their highs and lows stalking the couple, from hiding behind bushes and trees in shades and going on stomach-churning Roller Coaster rides. Inuyasha had been too close to chopping off the head of one Roller Coaster, at that.

When seven o'clock came hiking up to the pier side, Sota had indicated something strange...

"U-Uh, Inu...Inuyasha?" Sota lifted an inquiring finger to him.

"What is it now?" Inuyasha briskly snapped.

Sota could only trip and stumble over the feet of his words idiotically.

"C'mon, spit it out already! If we lose track of Kagome and Homo then I'm leavin' you behi..." Inuyasha's eyes snapped open much wider as he felt his heightened sense of smell leisurely die out on him.

"Y-Y-Your HAIR!" Sota finally choked out.

The half-demon's silver follicle was blackening rapidly. The gold of his eyes darkened into an intense pitch of jade while his fangs and claws trimmed down in size. And last but not least, the fuzzy appendages that stood upright on his head had subsided at his forelocks into ears like Sota's.

"Inu...yasha? I-I-Is that really YOU? Y-You're...why y-you're..."

Luckily, they had been behind the Ferris wheel when it all happened.

(A/N: I know the new moon is at the start of the month, but it also said it could occur on the 16th of Feb, so why not make it on the 14th just for this? Hehe)

A loud holler caught in the base of Kagome and Hojo's ears.

"Was that...?" Kagome did a double-take, wide-eyed.

"Probably some teenagers horsing around." He authenticated, shrugging it off. When Kagome stood there frozen in her segregated spot, he took it upon himself to lace the margins of his fingers in hers. "Come, Kagome. I've got one more thing I wanna show you."

"H-Huh? Oh," Kagome felt the awkwardness accumulate in her muscles at the new-fangled touch. "Okay..." Completely distracted, she followed idly.

"DAMN it, not NOW!" Inuyasha panicked, feeling himself over. "How could I forget this night?! Now how do we track down Kagome with all these people buzzing around?!"

'Woah..." Sota was still trying to soak all this in, but unfortuantely he was no SpongeBob. "You're HUMAN!" He yanked on the half-demon's thickly long black hair that surpassed his thighs. "And still all this HAIR! I bet the girls drool over you when you're human like this back in the Feudal Era, huh--"

"DON'T, _touch_, Kid!" Inuyasha snatched his mane from Sota's 'Curious-George' hands, red once again marking its territory over his incensed face. "Focus on helping me find Kagome and that Hobo bastard!"

"Okay, OKAY! You don't gotta yell!"

"Feh," Inuyasha tried to organize the sections of people with his eyes, ignoring some of the peeping teenaged girls that cut their eyes at him and giggled. "Just when my nose is useless and my human-side has cursed me, we lose them!"

"...Well, just in case you were wondering," Sota pointed into a totally opposite direction. "They're going to the pier boardwalk."

"...Keh! I knew that!"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Hey, who's that hunk?" Yuka aimed an inquisitive interest at the commotion between the swarm of citizens, sipping on her soda. Her short-nailed finger was pinning its direction right on the black-haired Inuyasha.

"Oh wow, I didn't know guys around here still grew their hair that long!" Eri melted into a bashful pink, eyes sparkling. "It looks so good on him..."

"He's gorgeous..." Ayumi admitted after them, gaping. "Woah, wait, hold the phone! Isn't that Kagome and Hojo over there on the boardwalk? And isn't that guy FOLLOWING them? AND he's got a bouquet of sakuras on him!"

"...Another one of Kagome's admirers?!" Eri and Yuka concluded. "Geez, Kagome gets all the hot bad boys! ...Let's follow!"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o0o0o0o0

(** - Boardwalk **- )

"So, how's the date so far?" Hojo broke the oddly boisterous silence between their gaps as they sat on the edge of the boardwalk, feet dangling above the tranquil oceanic currents.

"Hn? Date?" Kagome blinked like a complete dolt before shrieking back into reality. "O-Oh, right! It's great, just great!"

Hojo watched her every sheepish posture and fidget before smiling kindly, amused. "That's good." His blue-blued irises enraptured over the stars that decorated that celestial ocean above them.

Kagome examined the handsome middle school student from her angle. A class set of girls would dream to be in her place, clinging to Hojo, but...

Hojo had nice blue eyes.

Inuyasha had enchanting gold.

Hojo had tamed, short brown-hair.

Inuyasha had wild, long silvery white.

Hojo had an innocent yet unwavering smile.

Inuyasha had a cocky, yet heart-melting smirk.

Hojo had a sweet, kind-hearted chirp of a voice.

Inuyasha had a gruff, dominant growl.

Hojo was good-looking.

Inuyasha was absolutely beautiful.

Shoot, even as a human Inuyasha outdid him!

Kagome bit onto her shivering lips, overwhelmed by the image of the Inuyasha's profiled face in place of Hojo's. She wanted to see Inuyasha this badly?

"Ka...gome?" Hojo's worried voice pulled Kagome back from the sea of her notions.

"Huh?" Her long eyelashes fluttered like the wings of butterflies, her glowing cheeks now streaked with a rosy blush.

"Look," Hojo pried open a rectangular velvet box. "I got this for you, too." As the lid promoted higher, more and more of a shimmering silver heart-pendant reflected in Kagome's shocked eyes.

"H-Hojo..." Kagome slid out like her breath was caught short. "It's...it's..."

"Heh," he chuckled at her response, setting the box aside and letting the lace glitter upon the stars' light. "I thought you might like it." As he let the heart pendant fall onto her collarbone perfectly once encircling it around her slender neck, he watched Kagome gawk over it.

"Oh Hojo, this is so nice of you! Thank you--" But the moment she had innocently lifted her face to meet the glow of his, neither one of them had intended for the next action that came...

0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0oo0oo0o0o0o0o0o0

( -** Board walk -** )

"Are you sure they snuck off over here?" Inuyasha badgered, wishfully hoping they hadn't.

"Yeah." Sota went on with their journey despite Inuyasha's blubber.

"Well why the hell would they wanna be all alone over here in the first place? What's that bastard Homo up to?" Inuyasha's eyes narrowed out skeptically in a squint, his nose scrunched up on his face. "I swear, if he's put a hand on Kagome..."

"His name's Hojo--"

"I don't CARE!" Inuyasha roared over the near-deaf Sota.

Just as Sota tiredly opened his eyes up ahead, he squealed at what his visions brought to him. Kagome and Hojo were...

"Hey, what's your problem?" Inuyasha sunk into his boundaries, giving him the suspicious eye. "Why are you so...JUMPY?"

"UHHH NO REASON! S-S-Say Inuyasha, MAYBE I was wrong--th-they're over there!" Sota thrashed his arms about in Inuyasha's face, hoping to block the graphic illustration that would most disturb him.

"Wha--Hey! Give it rest, will you?!" Inuyasha nudged Sota aside, walking forward boldly. "There's no one on the boardwalk behind us, so there's no--"

"NO WAY!" Eri, Yuka and Ayumi gasped in high-exaggeration, but it wasn't gifted to Inuyasha, but rather Hojo and Kagome.

"Yoga, Ayami and Eerie?" Inuyasha tipped his head inquiringly. "What are you girls doing here?"

"LOOK!" Yuka, outstandingly ignoring the handsome black-haired stranger, pointed a disbelieving finger out to Hojo and Kagome. "Th-They're...they're..."

Her stammering only deciphered as trouble in Inuyasha's mind; he flung his head around to painfully inhale the picture sketched out for him personally to see...

Sota gulped his heart back down into his stomach, his acids boiling...

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

( -** Boardwalk **- )

Hojo and Kagome gazed in impending alarm upon the other's face as their lips remained padlocked and bolted together. Kagome was too stunned to calculate the equation of what had exactly happened, but all she knew was that this kiss was nothing like the kiss of Inuyasha's. She couldn't feel the slightly protruding fangs and the warmth of his dominating, hot mouth. Instead, she felt a coldness creep into her heart and devour her innards. She felt betrayal devastate her, even if she was never Inuyasha's to begin with. This kiss was utterly lifeless nevertheless. However, Hojo's short eyelashes leveled down onto his flushed cheeks as he embraced Kagome's cheek with his hand, assuming she had felt what he felt...

Love.

Sota's eyes almost squeezed out of his hollow sockets. Little by little, he craned his head back to look up at Inuyasha, almost dreading to see what his face looked like now...

He had the right to feel fearful, too, for that look on the young half-demon's face was...

Anquishing.

Inuyasha could only stand in the cerulean light of the stars as his mouth hung open dryly and his thick eyebrows crunched back. The tanned color of his face had even paled into tragic gloom. His tongue felt withered and his throat was parched from whatever words he wanted to worm out after having swallowed his heart was a painful task. His stomach pit churned so awfully, he was sure vomit would rush up his throat. But soon enough, the face of despair transformed into a facade of rage.

Kagome finally brought herself to retract back from Hojo's delicate lips. Almost instincitively, she whipped her head round to the human Inuyasha, forgetting how to breathe. "INU--"

Before the name could be pronounced, Inuyasha had snagged Hojo by the throat and left him suspended above the wooden floor beneath their toes. "Just who the _FUCK_ do you think you ARE?!"

"Hojo!" Eri, Yuka and Ayumi sprang forward from their hiding place. "Let him go you CREEP!"

Even as a human, red rage had blinded over the Inuyasha's quaking irises.

"Let him GO!" Kagome fisted Inuyasha's arm, shaking him. "He didn't mean any HARM!"

Inuyasha only tightened his death lock over the young boy's wind pipes. "No..."

"DROP him NOW!"

Sweat strolled down Hojo's cheeks as he wheezed for life to enter through his air passages.

"YOU'RE _GOING TO KILL HIM!_" The sensation of Kagome's salty tear grazed Inuyasha's cheek.

In this moment, he let Hojo drop below him.

Hojo hacked as he rubbed his sore throat, crawling away from the deadly stranger. "Wh-Who are you?"

"That's the _LEAST _of your worries." Inuyasha snarled, clenching his human teeth through old demon habits. "If you EVER, EVER come near Kagome again," an animalistic growl had erupted from the violent Inuyasha's vocal cords. "I will personally rip your tongue out and feed it to you."

"Ayumi, Eri, Yuka, get Hojo OUT of here!" Kagome demanded as she glared heavily into the half-demon's steely face.

"R-Right!" The three girls did as told and helped the conscious Hojo out of harm's way.

When Kagome was convinced they were at a safe distance, she turned her hardened glower onto the half-demon. The word was wrapped the spear of her tongue and she was ready to let it soar and penetrate him like an arrow.

"Keh! Little wimp..." Inuyasha snorted ignorantly, before stiffening his own grimace down on Kagome. "And YOU..."

"Me?!" Kagome barked. She couldn't help but feel a strange grasp of intimidation at the unusual venom dripping the steel-toed boots of his words. It sounded deep and dormant, like a painful mishmash of betrayal and...

"You DISGUST me, Kagome." Inuyasha scolded brutally. "I turn my back for one second and you're slobbering all over some weakling HUMAN? How many times are you gonna fall for every guy that falls in love with YOU, eh?! How many times are you gonna feed off their...their BULLSHIT?!"

Now having the strength in her temper repossessed, Kagome countered his attack. "Excuse ME? I DO have self-respect and first of all, I have no feelings for Hojo so get your FACTS straight and think before you TALK! That kiss was an accident--"

"Cut the CRAP, God damn you!" Inuyasha bellowed, taking a husky step forward, combating to maintain himself. "I'm sick and tired of doing stupid little shit to make YOU happy! I never even get a damn 'THANK YOU' in the end! So HERE," he shoved the bouquet of half-dead sakuras into her limp arms. "Happy fucking VALENTINES Day, Kagome!"

With those bold words of black ink, he spun around on his heel to hide his hurt face and left her cold and alone in the darkness.

Sota cringed back as Inuyasha abruptly brushed him by, the anger radiating off his body.

Kagome helplessly watched the handsome Inuyasha fade away into the distance as his back shrunk.

A flash of red sheeted and clotted her vision, but then a salvaging blue of what the landscape really looked like rescued her just in time once the prinicipal of his temper reached her.

He was scared...

...Because he thought Hojo had stolen her away from him on this particular day? Did today really mean that much to him? Had he truly taken her feelings into consideration?

Kagome regretfully looked down on the wilted sakuras, tears of understanding beginning to well. "Inuyasha...was only th-thinking of me today...not himself..." _'H-He did all this just for me, only to think it was in vain because of H-Hojo._' She hugged the dead flora life to her heart, eyes closed tightly to resist sobbing.

The stars mourned with her.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Inuyasha sat under the Sacred Tree of Kagome's shrine grounds, one knee perched for his elbow to rest on. His black trousers that he wore just for Kagome's eyes were a bit dirtied and blotted from sitting on the grassy clayed earth that encased the tree's roots. His messy black bangs curtained his forehead, veiling into his trembling jade irises. His expression glum and agonized...the Tree even felt like crying and wrapping its branches around his silently weeping heart.

...Just when had the roots of his heart become so vulnerable without him realizing it? Even with Kikyo his heart hadn't fully softened, but with Kagome...it was made of pure pudding. It slushed to the floor like the noodles of steaming ramen every time she even crossed his thought-range.

The night's zephyrs blew the Sacred Tree's sakura blossoms along the shrine's landscape to mend his loneliness, some dancing into Inuyasha's netting mane.

_/This world_

_Is filled_

_With the perfume of flowers_/

"...Inuyasha..."

The half-demon bolted his head upright at the musical and harmonizing tone of that voice. He veered his head to his right, only to be those excruciating millimeters away from Kagome's remorseful face. Her big, round oak-tree irises looked sappy and moist, as if a pool of tears were ready to send a wave of avalanche on him from the depths of her apologizing eyes.

Inuyasha's orbs fell into a strange, shuddering passion for a split second before they steeled over again. His jaw was tight and his emotions longed to solidify, to return to his old self so he could push the teary-eyed girl out of his sight forever. Did she know deeply she speared him tonight?

"What...What are you doing here?" He asked weakly in a poor excuse to defend his heart. He craned his head away to keep from her eyes, at least. He didn't want her to see the vulnerability waning in them.

But there was just about nothing, nothing he could do to escape her touch; Kagome threw herself into Inuyasha's bulked chest, holding fast, holding tight. "I'm so, so, so sorry, Inuyasha. I didn't know it hurt you that much..." Kagome sniveled into his red shirt, nestling his firm breast.

Normally, Inuyasha could protest to this moment, but his heart was panging too greatly for him to mask himself. Instead, his eyes gazed afar into the scenery of twirling sakuras. He prayed to the Gods Kagome hadn't felt his heart jump...

/_I feel love_

_Don't you hear that soft sound?_

_Follow the joyful beat of my shy heart_

_Who was that voice?_

_Who said those unkind things?_

_That insensitive facade was a mask_

_Now love touches me_/

"Ka...gome..." Was all he could whimper out in his frozen stature, his face on fire as she situated into his lap.

"Oh Inuyasha," Kagome smiled through her brooking tears, suddenly kissing only happiness that he hadn't torn away from her embrace. Halfheartedly, the hopelessly-in-love teen brought her eyes to the detailed contours of his enchanting face. Even without his lovely demon features, he still poised the same beauty he always would. "Inuyasha?" she breathed warmly between the crickets' song of love.

Inuyasha's almost scared eyes sealed on the soulful vortexes of hers. He just remembered how strong his emotions could be when he was human...and around Kagome.

When he didn't budge his lips, Kagome decided to speak first, "Hojo and me aren't anything but friends, Honest."

Finally, Inuyasha got his hoarse voice back, "They why did I catch you two KISSING?"

"HE kissed me, Inuyasha. Hojo has feelings for me, but I have none for him! It's nothing for you to get mad over, I mean..." she tilted her head curiously, her silky strands swaying to one side. "...why should you even care? It's not like..."

Inuyasha blinked, sweat glued to his heating flesh at her words, her actions, and her voice whilst the starlight shone down on them both. The blossoms stll waltzed around them to spellbind the love scene and keep them raptured in its robings.

_/In this twilight I see you_

_Share everything_

_Now this world is filled_

_With the perfume of flowers_

_I fee love/_

"So...are you okay now?" Kagome's innocence forever awed him.

The sweetened girl of purification set her worrying hand onto his racing heart. "Your heart's pounding, Inuyasha!" Kagome gasped like it were the most amazing scientific discovery of the year.

"Keh, well maybe if you stopped TOUCHING me," Inuyasha slapped her hand away before crossing his arms and flinging his head away, face torched by now.

Kagome studied him long and hard until the belated realization smacked her upside the noggin. "Was it racing...because of me?"

Inuyasha made no signals of having heard her, no denial, no expressional alteration. _'Damn...I forgot why I was mad at her!'_ The only confirmation that Kagome was aware of was just how genuinely his eyes had glistened in a tornado of passions.

Oh, what was this beautiful creature thinking about?

Why couldn't he share it with her? Share his pain, his sorrows, his happiness, his heart with her?

_/My wounded soul could heal_

_If I only told you_

_I would follow you_

_And bear your burden/_

"You really look nice, Inuyasha..." Kagome confessed randomly.

"H-Huh?" Inuyasha croaked before clearing his throat.

"The way you're dressed...you look nice." Kagome fought with her own feeings.

"Keh." He sealed his eyes into a shutting, threatening his own heart.

"And those flowers were really...how'd you know I liked sakuras?"

Inuyasha unwaveringly drew his eyes down on her petite form compared to his larger body. "I didn't. You just smell like them, so...I figured hell, might as well give 'em to you. Girls like stupid mush-mush like that..."

Kagome's lips couldn't stick with one pose after his profession. So that's what she smelled like to his sensitive nose all this time? Something that intoxicatingly lovely?

"A-And your clothes?" She went on, trying to calm her fainting heart.

"Sota and those weird three girls you always hang around."

"You went through...all that trouble?"

Now Inuyasha went rigid and serious as he nodded; she damn well better recognize all he went through for her sake, just to appease her.

As the sorrows of the night finally lifted off her lungs, Kagome's chest inflated with new elation.

So he cared. For more than just her safety, but her feelings too. He cared.

"All that for my smile, Inuyasha?" she inclined foward, eyes distant and consciously-dreaming.

Inuyasha swigged down an uneasy gulp at witnessing her beaming smile that went from ear to ear. He couldn't help his fluttering this time.

_/No matter how long_

_No matter how distant_

_Your love continues_

_Though sorrows or troubles pursue_

_Love endures/_

The singing choir of the wind jazzed along their luscious locks of ebony hair in sync whilst both humans gazed from eye to eye at one another, sorting out their brewing feelings.

Inuyasha's back was cornered to the tree as Kagome bent in further, a few stripes of pink rowing her cheeks, her glistening lips open for the taking. His eyes ran from those lips to her eyes in a heavy battle against his waddling emotions. He didn't know what would happen next...

/_/All I have is_

_My song_

_Carried on the tender wind_

_Now this world is filled with_

_the perfume of flowers/_

But after Kagome's delicate hands had lightly gripped onto the collar of his shirt, he didn't need to wonder anymore, and he certainly didn't need to dream anymore.

She enveloped her mouth over his, eyelashes brushing against her blistering cheeks. The electrical bolt of affection that attacked their mouthes was perfectly overpowering. Leaning deeper and deeper into him until her breasts were peaking his, Kagome never took the intimacy of the kiss further. She remained with her lips pinioned over his, meaningful and soft, savoring the sensational tang of his soft skin plastered to her own. Their first kiss wasn't enough and yet was more than she could take. Back at that mirror castle, she only focused on reaching Inuyasha's heart and not to memorize precisely what his flawless lips would feel like. But now, she could accurately sketch them out this time...paint them even.

"M-Mmph..." Inuyasha stared widely down on the lovesick miko, literally as red as a tomato in the face. His eyebrows nonetheless began to slump in a fantasy of the disbelieving, almost mentally fighting with himself to tear away from her love.

He's was too tired to listen, too old to believe all those childish stories; there was no such thing as faith, trust and true love...

And yet...

Kagome...

_'Kagome,' _Inuyasha's lips relaxed against the craving covets of hers. He was losing everything of himself that once built a gruff exterior around his heart.

The mask was cracking.

/_/I feel love_

_And_

_Who was that voice?_

_Who said all those unkind things?_

_That insensitive facade was a mask_

_Now love touches me_/

Kagome recoiled from his lips, leaving them to tingle with the warmth that she had blessed him with. She sat back in her position in his lap where she had. Blinking into his glazed eyes and feeling lightheaded, Kagome replayed the performance of forgiveness in her head over and over again. Her fingers slid over her lips like a phantom-feeling, her eyes sentimental with teary joy.

"You know..." she giggled inwardly.

Inuyasha' reality was gradually oozing back into his memory now as he perked up at her voice.

"I don't understand how others can hate half-demons so much. They're amazing creatures to me." Her eyes raked over his, recollecting her humor in her following smile. "Cute, too."

Having forgotten why he had hid himself from Kagome for so long in the first place, the half-demon raised an uncertain palm of fingers to Kagome's dangling strands of lose hair. He tucked them back behind the curl of her ears, where they belonged. He noticed how when her hair suspended over her ears like forelocks, her resemblance with Kikyo was complete. That's not how she was meant to look anymore. He wanted her to look like Kagome and no one else by the one and only Kagome.

"Kagome..." He pronounced like he were practicing it, to see how it felt on the rhythm of his tongue, and it felt like a purified breath of fresh air.

_/In this twilight_

_I see only you_

_Share everything/_

"I think...they're just jealous that you're so stunning in so many ways." Love-drunk, Kagome rested her cheek against his pillowing, exposed collarbone. "I've always thought you were stunning in many ways, Inuyasha." she closed her eyes, relishing and cherishing this moment, even if it were for only a night. "I'll never think like everyone else does about you. You're above all that. You'll never be alone, either, because I'll always, always be here with--..."

Inuyasha had compelled his finger to her mouth in order to slow its movements and mute her words. He wasn't smiling, but the severe fragments of light stabbing painfully at the color of his darkened eyes was enough. "I didn't give you your Valentines present, Kagome." He spoke unnaturally tender, it nearly wounding him to change the topic. "...And it's something that you don't have."

Kagome's adoring eyes watered due to the stinging winds between them. "What's...what's that?"

As the pink sakuras got themselves tangled in the twisting strands of their raven hair, Inuyasha took his last chance to arrest her lips in the governance of his. His eyes fell into a proud, finalizing close.

The kiss was unsullied and saccharine in Kagome's mind, and it expressed things he couldn't exactly thread into words.

Swallowing any shyness he had come to overwhelm, Inuyasha ghosted his tongue alongside the outer skin of her lips, permitting her gasp to dissolve into his mouth. In that instant, he took her invitation and lovingly cuddled her tongue with his own, memorizing every niche and crook of her mouth's dripping grotto.

Kagome, in return, tasted his every secret, his every cause with her own obligation. "M-Mm..." No test score could bring her the overjoying feeling Inuyasha's confident kiss could.

_/Now _

_the tender wind_

_Carries our song/_

Reluctantly, Inuyasha lugged out from her hungering lips to speak over their invigorating passion, "...That's something you didn't have; the benefit of kissing the O' Great Inuyasha like this in his human form." He smirked.

Kagome blinked bashfully at his old self before half-smiling. "Cocky jerk."

"Lovesick Wench." He joked back, wrapping his fingers around the lace of Hojo's necklace and snapping the silver off her neck.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome squealed at the broken gift.

"Pipe down, Stupid. I'm gonna replace it with something better than what that bastard could ever give you. Once I have my fangs back, that is." Inuyasha watched Kagome's cheeks puff out with subsequent anger. He rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't say if it I were you, Wench."

Kagome's fuse busted, "SI--"

_'I warned ya'...'_ Inuyasha cockily smashed his lips onto the tiny outline of hers to catch her scream and let it thaw into his mouth. Positive that her tantrum had vanquished, he cradled her smaller, petite body into his lap, knowing she was safe there.

The Sacred Tree inwardly grinned as the blossoms balleted around the awkward moment of happiness as Kagome distractedly fell into her half-demon's new-found charms...

'_...How could this ever happen without me noticing it?' _Inuyasha's mind hypothesized as he embraced her tighter under his unyielding grip, letting the thick strands of his lose black hair cloak over her cheeks and shoulders while he leaned inward further. "Mmm..." he scraped his human teeth across her sensitive bottom lip, teasing her with excruciating ecstasy. _'How did I fall for Kagome without ever realizing it...?'_

_'I...you're only dreaming, Kagome. This isn't real. But even if it isn't, I don't want to wake up just yet.' _Kagome elevated her chin, her neck stretching out to meet the passionate tango of his kiss, his fiery tongue swathing the outer and inner lands of her mysterious mouth. It was as if he were drinking her and her, drinking every ounce of everything he once kept from her wandering mind. And he himself tasted much more refreshing than any crystallite water. _'Inuyasha...you're my beautiful disaster.' _

Inuyasha proceeded on molding his mouth over hers to conquer her, yet careful not to break her. He pondered if he'd regret this by sunrise, when all these humans emotions would weaken._ 'Keh, must be some miko spell.'_ He smiled at that theory.

His 'wench'.

His miko.

His Valentine.

His Kagome.

_/This world is filled_

_With the perfume of flowers_

_I feel love/_

_'I can finally see where you see, Kagome. I don't mind believing in those childish stories anymore; how the world is made of faith, trust and...' _

"EW, SIS!! TAKE THAT SOMEWHERE ELSE!!"

_'...And the justice of ripping out your little brother's VOICE BOX!!'_


	6. Loves Me NoT

_**"****Loves Me Not"**_

**Disclaimer: **_Inspired by an Inuyasha AMV, _"Loves Me Not - HojoxKagomexInuyasha"_. I may need to write a part two to this chapter. I do know there will be a 'Prom' chapter before I finish this drabble story. However, this story can technically never end. _

_I'm going to be writing two more Inuyasha fanfictions in unison! They'll be based off Spirited Away and The Last Samurai. Crossovers, I suppose? I can't wait! Should I really do it? What do you guys think? Because I'm going to start it as soon as tonight! Oooh how excited I am. Two of my favorite movies blended in with my favorite anime. But do you guys know if anyone's tried to do these ideas yet?_

_**Chapter Summary:** __Study night turned out to be more than just that. Kagome happened to be taking notes on her new standard of living and if loving Inuyasha had really been what was hurting her lifestyle all along. But she's not the only one reflecting on her feelings. Who is best for her heart and her life? Starring Hojo, Akitoki Hojo and Inuyasha._

_Song Used - "Loves Me Not" - TATU_

0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Kagome's Point of View -**

"Hnnn..." I burred out a tired moan.

It was so loud, I actually heard it echo off the walls of my bedroom. That's what helped me realize just how quiet my room really was. No nagging, "KA-GO-ME!" or "HEY, WENCH!" barking in my left ear to deafen me.

...I sighed.

Can someone please help me understand why I miss that bad-tempered voice so much?

...Anybody?

Urgh...

I kneaded my temples before dropping my face into my heap of text books.

GOD! How'd me, myself and I get into this mess? My brain hurt for Christ's sake and at this very moment it seemed appropriate to blame Inuyasha for it, but also disturbing. You can't blame someone for being on your mind, can you?

...Then again, it seemed a whole lot easier to!

"Stupid Inuyasha..." I desperately complained, turning my face to stare into the piece of paper with a scribbled number inked on it. "It's his fault I feel like this."

I gotta say it though, that seemed kinda weird to think. I mean, Inuyasha never really did anything to make me feel this way. He was rude, arrogant, selfish, jealous, locked up...all the things I was against in a guy.

And yet...look at me.

I've gone so far as to wishing his first love was out of our lives forever because of how far he's drove me over the edge. Inuyasha never did a thing to make me feel like this; he was simply always himself, just Inuyasha. And I...

_/I complicated our lives_

_By falling in love_

_With him/_

"Hojo." I recited the name on the sheet of notebook paper aloud, now feeling another uppercut of guilt deck me right in the jaw.

Hojo was the guy that I should've fallen for.

Hojo was the guy that I should've picked.

Hojo was the guy that should've been my dream boat.

But he's not, Ladies and Gentlemen. No sir'ee. Someone beat him to it. I bet I'm going to lose Hojo as a friend really soon if he continues to get the wrong idea.

_/I complicated our lives_

_Now I'm losing my only friend/_

Tonight was the night I realized...

That I really had complicated my entire life because of how Inuyasha made me 'feel'. On the other side of that well is where my heart has been residing for the past year.

...What do I do, even after all this Jewel-searching is over? What'll be my excuse to stay with him?

_/I don't know why_

_I had to try_

_Living my life on the other side/_

A clear, picture-perfect image of Inuyasha's face framed my thoughts. I closed my eyes inventively, trying to cram in every meticulous reel and column of his sweltering gold eyes, his slightly tanned complexion and messy perfection of undomesticated silver hair that was almost snow white.

The mirroring image of his human face crept in, too. The long black Rapunzel hair and rugged, jade or sometimes violet sapphire eyes.

My heart skipped 'ring-around-the-rosy'. Inuyasha was like a Mona Lisa, oh I swear. Just a hundred times more gorgeous...no offense, Mona.

I'll probably end up painting him if I keep going on like this!

Just as I was about to pound my head into my desk, I stopped and grapsed onto some thread of maturity.

I'm tried of denying it. I'm too far in. Farther than waist-deep, but completely immersed in the ocean of Inuyasha. He's so full of surprises and undiscovered secrets, just like the deep blue sea. Yeah, that's what he is; an ocean. Beautiful, mystifying, wavering, delicate yet powerful.

...Oh for crying out loud! Inuyasha's turning me into a poet/artist! And apparently he's my muse...

Hmph, I doubt I'd be as beautiful to Inuyasha for him to want to paint or write about my looks. He'd rather sculp Kikyo's head.

Huh, that's right...

What will I do when I verbally find out Inuyasha doesn't feel a thing for little ol' me? I am second-fettle to him, after all.

_/Now I'm so confused_

_I don't know what to do/_

...Should I forget my feudal fairy tale, and live a real life with Hojo?

I narrowed my eyes, pouting at the phone number.

I know for a fact how Hojo feels about me. Same with Akitoki.

_/He Loves Me/_

...But Inuyasha.

I remember when he hugged me for the first time, said he was scared he'd lose me forever and then suddenly shoved me to the dirt like it meant nothing.

_/He Loves Me_

_Not/_

My face burned red with anger. "Hmph! Jerk..."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Inuyasha's Point of View - **

Keh, I don't see why that useless Akitoki Hojo to tag along with us. He was only gonna get in the way and get US in his trouble. Not like we were going anywhere at the time anyway, since I was busy waitin' for Kagome to hurry up and spring out of that damn Bone Eater's Well.

While the others stayed in Kaede's village, I sat with my back leant against the lip of the well, sighing in never-ending annoyance. Couldn't sleep tonight. Not now. Feh, not like I needed it anyway...

"Stupid girl." I scoffed halfheartedly, irritation fueling my voice as I gazed up at the constellation of stars dangling above my head. My eyelids drooped a bit at the satisfying wind that soothed me from ear to ear. "Hmph...Kagome."

_/She Loves Me/_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Akitoki's Point of View - **

"Hooo..." I towed out a disheartened sigh from my sore throat, feeling loose hairs fall into my eyes. "It is really true what the others told me...?"

Shippou told me first hand that my feelings were in vain after all. I mean, I already had a hunch after I saw Kagome and Inuyasha fight alongside each other ever so bravely...

"What a disaster this turned out to be." I moaned in hopelessness.

So my Celestial Maiden has someone else who fell for her as well.

_/She Loves Me_

_Not/_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Hojo's Point of View -**

"What a disaster this turned out to be..." I sighed in hopelessness while staring over the ruined scroll of the ancestral tree. The drink had dapped right over Kagome's name, too!

Yuka and the others apologized and said it was an accident, but...

"Hm, no." I forced on a self-comforting smile. "No piece of anicent paper is going to change my feelings for Kagome or her feelings for me."

_/She Loves Me/_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Akitoki's Point of View - **

I turned my head a little to stare into the direction of Inuyasha, the mysterious half-demon. He was still waiting at the well for Kagome, strong arms crossed, face stern and solid like a true warrior...

"Hmm..." my mind ached as well as my stomach. "If only I were like him...then maybe Kagome would look at me with new eyes."

_/She Loves Me_

_Not/_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Inuyasha's Point of View - **

My ear floundered in response to overhearing Akitoki's little 'wishful' comment.

Keh, he was such a typically predictable human; steered only by his feelings and not his HEAD.

I couldn't control the growl heating my throat and hell, nor did I care to! Like hell Kagome would EVER look at that puny human with 'new eyes'.

My eyes slit open a little...

Even if Kagome is kindhearted, she'd never choose that Hojo...or that mangy wolf.

...Would she?

_/He Loves Me/_

"Keh! Why the hell should I care what she does?!" I barked to no one in particular, that nauseating, STUPID heat mushrooming on my complexion again.

Damn, I hate my human heart! It still gets the best of me, even in my half-demon form! I can't wait to permanently change all that.

_/He Loves Me_

_Not/_

"Uhhh...Inuyasha?" That wheedled voice sounded disturbingly familiar...and I EMPHASIZE 'disturbingly'.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Kagome's Point of View - **

I had to hurry and do this homework before Inuyasha came and barged in, demanding for me to go back to the world beyond the well! That selfish jerk...he really had me tangled, sometimes. One minute he's in a bad mood and the next he's worried sick over me or my feelings.

"Awww..." I picked up my pencil, upset that I couldn't focus on this stupid algebra.

Once my eyes opened, I practically screamed in horror to find a pencil sketch of Inuyasha on my study sheet.

That's it...

I need therapy!

_/She Loves Me/_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Inuyasha's Point of View - **

My eye cracked open, just to find my temper feeding off the mere sight of Shippou in hitting-range.

"Who are you talking to? Are you daydreaming about KAGOME again?" I could feel that little kitsune smirk stretching on his face. "You lovesick dog, you! Kagome's got you wrapped around her finger like a noodle of Ramen--D'OH! INUYASHA, WHAT CHU DO THAT FOR?! THAT HURT!" Shippou whimpered like a little cry baby, clasping the bump I gave him right on the noggin.

Served the little brat RIGHT!

"Keh, music to my ears..." I grinned victoriously.

_/I started blurring the lines/_

"Oooh all I DID was mention KAGOME--AHH!" I hit the idiot with another punishing bop.

"You ready for strike THREE, ya' runt?" I growled among my fangs, making sure he could see the antagonism screaming in my eyes.

"Why do you ALWAYS do that, you jerk?!" Shippou was still persistent on gettin' himself in more trouble, looks like.

I readied my first, my eyebrow waggling with contaminated anger. "You ASKED for it..."

But Shippou wasn't readying a counter attack. "After all this time and you STILL can't admit that you're in love with Kagome! Akitoki and Koga may not be as strong as you, but they have WAY more courage than you seem to, Inuyasha! They ADMITTED their feelings to Kagome! And Akitoki's the biggest fool of us all! But I guess YOU'VE taken his place! So what are you afraid of, huh?! She already loves you back, ya' creep! I really don't get what she sees in a jerk like you!"

_/Because I didn't care.../_

I had to pause in mid-punch, my knuckles inches from Shippou's flat, pig-headed...head! Next thing I knew, that damn blush kidnapped my cheeks AGAIN.

"...Hey Shippou, ever wondered what it would be like to fly to the moon...?" I leaned incredibly close to him, so ticked off that my fangs were showing and my eyes were slanted in a fake grin.

Shippou stood upright and itched his chin, eyes dazing over the moon. "Hmm, well I have thought about it once or twice..."

The little runt was completely oblivious.

With one lunge, "Then here's--" I gripped Shippou by the collar and hurtled him into oblivion. "--a helping HAND!!"

"WAAAAH! INUYASHA YOU JEEEEERK!"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Kagome's Point of View -**

"That's IT! I can't focus!" I chucked my pencil into the wall, probably snapping it in two. "Darn you, Inuyasha! You're out of my room but you can't stay out of my head?!" I whined dejectedly while sprawling over my desk.

I almost wanted him to come and rescue me from my stress right about now...

_/He Loves Me/_

But that's when it also hit me: I never did belong in the Feudal Era, did I? I mean it wasn't just chance that I happened to stumble upon it, but...my life originally belonged here. I'm from the future. This is where I was born. And Inuyasha's life belongs to his world.

...So my feelings for him were in vain because of two reasons now.

And Inuyasha was never there to confirm that my feelings weren't. He was never there to tell me it didn't bother him that I told him I loved him back at the castle. He was never there to tell me he loved it that I told him.

_/He Loves Me_

_Not/_

He just...

Up and forget, I guess.

And forgot about my heart, too.

_/Nowhere to turn_

_No one to help/_

There were a few other guys that had their hearts hung on the line for me. Yet I'm on the edge of some cliff waiting for the day Inuyasha's will dangle for me too. But that seems like it'll never, ever happen...

Second-fettle.

Hmph. Fine, then.

_/It's almost like I don't even know myself_

_Now I have to choose/_

I rolled out that little paper and started dialing, my face smudged with a pout...

_/I started crossing the line_

_Because you were never there/_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Hojo's Point of View -**

Oh! The phone!

"I got it, Mom!" I picked up the phone and practically stabbed it to my ear, hoping it was who I thought it was...

And cupid must've been on my side, 'cuz it was! It truly was!

"Kagome! So glad to hear from you!" I can't even describe to you how wide my grin was.

"Hey, Hojo..." she sounded a little nervous on the other end, but that was understandable. "I was just wondering..."

My eyes grew wider with each anticipating second. "Yes?"

She was going to say it; it was right on the crest of her tongue.

She was going to say...

_/She Loves Me/_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Akitoki's Point of View -**

This is it.

I have to do it or at least try.

I have to know if it's true.

And if Kagome could ever return my feelings.

_/She Loves Me_

_Not/_

"Say...In-Inuyasha?"

The white-haired...or was it silver? Er, whatever. The LONG-haired half-demon turned around to look at me; agitation doodled all over his offhanded face. I sweat dropped a little and 'ahem'd, trying not to seem scared.

D-Dogs can smell fear.

"What?" Inuyasha scorned, like he smelt what I was thinking. "If it ain't important, then don't bother me with it, _human_."

By the way he highlighted 'human', it sounded like he had something against them. How could he love Kagome if he did? Maybe Shippou was wrong?

"Can I talk to you about...Kagome?" I gulped dumbly.

At this, Inuyasha's ears perked up. "Hn? What _for_?" His tone summarily dissolved into a bitter one.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Kagome's Point of View -**

"...Do you have the notes for tomorrow's test?" I sweat dropped in shame, hoping he didn't think it would be something else.

There was a long pause on the other end.

"Uh, H-Hojo?" I squeaked.

"...Why of course," Huh, his voice sounded as cheery as regular, so I assumed he didn't take my call the wrong way. "Would you like me to bring them over?"

_/He Loves Me/_

I nodded reflexively, forgetting he couldn't see it. "Could you really? Thanks, Hojo."

"No problem! I'll be there in a sec', Kagome. See you then."

I stared down on the phone as I ended the call. Maybe Hojo really was deciding to simply see me as a friend now.

_/He Loves Me_

_Not/_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Inuyasha's Point of View - **

"This better be good." I was dry on this subject already.

We sat on the hilltop that was faced straight at the falling stars.

What the hell did he want to bring up Kagome's name in my face for? Didn't he already take the hint that the name wasn't welcome in his mouth, especially in front of me? Even the Sacred TREE knew she didn't love this klutzy moron.

_/She Loves Me/_

I heard Hojo squirm and grunt, like he was having a hard time with all this.

...What was on this guy's _mind_?

"Kagome...she's a beautiful maiden, isn't she?" He messed with the end of his robbing like a nervous wreck. "I-I...I'm sure many men fantasize about marrying her."

"Cut the small talk, Akitoki." I cracked, my arms crossed over my Fire Rat as I slighted my eyes. "Get to the point and stop wasting my time. What _about_ Kagome?"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Akitoki's Point of View - **

Inuyasha was a rather...

Cavalier person, wasn't he?

"R...Right..." I was on unease's end once more.

My heart couldn't stop the butterflies from delving the organs of my body. The tickling wings were enough to coerce my insides over the edge. Kagome's smile wedged itself into my memory.

Ah, yes...dear Kagome's smile. I had learned by heart every aspect of it. From the way it cambered on her face and perked up her rosy cheeks, to the dazzling, glistening pout that profiled her lips...those beautiful, kissable lips. Oh Kagome, if only I knew how you really felt about me...

_/She Loves Me_

_Not/_

I had been daydreaming so long, I-I had forgotten Inuyasha was still beside me, glaring his Tetsusaiga into my head!

"HEY!" I heard him woof, which sent my fantasy flying out the window. "Keep your mind outta the GUTTER, will ya'? I asked you a damn question, so answer it already!"

Between me and him, I think we both know he could just get up and leave...

But deep down I knew he wanted to continue the topic because it had to do with Kagome.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Kagome's Point of View -**

"Hi, Hojo." I smiled politely at my classmate standing in my doorway.

Boy did he get here fast or what?

"Hey there, Kagome." Hojo let out a trouble-free chuckle. "May I come in?"

_/He Loves Me/_

"Sure," I welcomed him in, eyeing his backpack. Good, so he did bring those notes after all.

As we headed to my room and he went on chatting about...wh-whatever it was he was saying, my mind mechanically coasted off to Inuyasha. I really did wonder what he was doing, how he was feeling and what he was thinking right now.

Maybe about me?

A vein popped.

Yeah right, more like Kikyo...

_/He Loves Me_

_Not/_

Then again, he probably was thinking about how badly he wanted to strangle me for being late. But he'd just have to wait, now wouldn't he?

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Inuyasha's Point of View -**

Geez, was this damn Akitoki missing a few brain cells or WHAT?

He reeked of arousal all over and I just knew it had to be because he was thinking about Kagome. One second later and I would've scratched his heart out to do him a favor of ridding his feelings for Kagome.

Almost instinctively, I began flexing the muscles in my fingers.

Keh, he'd thank me for it later.

"As you know...I-I'm in...I have...deep feelings for Miss Kagome."

A growl was in my throat again, but it wasn't like my others; it was full of absolute frenzy.

"Shippou told me that she told you she loved you as a half-demon back at Princess Kagulya's Castle. A-And you two kissed..." Akitoki's voice was getting a little tight.

"What of it?" I snapped as calmly as I could, but it only came out quick and sharp.

"Is that...true?"

I lowered my head, my thoughts zooming back to that memory. I had forgotten all about that. Or rather, I tried to. It's too late to deny anything, because I kissed Kagome back.

When Kagome uttered those words as cherry blossoms danced all around her, I didn't know what shocked me more; the fact that someone else actually loved me, like THIS, as a half-demon and nothing more, or the fact that it was coming from only Kagome's mouth and I had wanted to hear it. It made me wonder if Kikyo ever loved me as a half-demon wholeheartedly and not just halfheartedly. I know she wanted me to change for the better good, but...Kagome seems like she doesn't want to make any sacrifices to change who I am, even if it costs her the privilege of no longer having to fight for her life.

_/She Loves Me/_

I remember...after our little 'kiss' was over and done with, after I held her close like letting her go would cause me to lose my life, I convinced myself Kagome's feelings for me weren't anything strong. I convinced myself she only said it to save me and herself, because perhaps she knew I wanted to hear it. But that's as far as it went. I convinced myself she really DID force herself on me, and I've been too scared to mention it to her since. I really don't know how to feel about Kagome...it's just so complicated.

"Of course it's true, you idiot!" I spat at Hojo while swishing my head to the other side, avoiding his eye so he couldn't see the ridiculous red blooming all over my face like daises.

"So then, K-Kagome really has been in love with you...just as I suspected." Akitoki sighed, heartbroken. Tch, like I gave a damn anyway.

I couldn't help but hear my heart saying, _'If only you were as confident about that as you he is_'.

_/She Loves Me_

_Not/_

I clutched my heart, threatening it.

Stupid heart. Your mouth runs as much as Shippou's and never knows when to shut up.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Kagome's Point of View -**

I copied Hojo's notes in silence while he sat on my bed, feeling a bit better now that I was actually getting somewhere.

"Say Kagome..."

I blinked back around at Hojo and then smiled. "Hm? What is it?"

Hojo wasn't looking like Hojo, though. He reminded me more of Inuyasha; his eyes were facing the carpet and his lips were squirming through many acrobats. Something was really bugging him. "Who is...this Inuyasha character?"

_/He Loves Me/_

"Hic?" Sweat blobs leaked out of my pores and a LOT of them.

"Ayumi and the others told me the other day that you were seeing someone named Inuyasha--"

"They did WHAT?!" I couldn't even let him finish I was so fumed! I can't believe they did that!

Hojo just blinked worriedly. "Something...wrong?"

I recovered as fast as I could and forced on a reassuring smile, "Listen Hojo, whatever my friends told you don't worry about it. Inuyasha is an insensitive, possessive jerk that doesn't care about anyone but himself and there was nothing between us."

I know I shouldn't have said that, but...I was mad!

Hey, wait a minute! Why should I even care if Hojo found out anyway? It's not like...

_/He Loves Me_

_Not/_

"...You really love him, huh?"

...I felt the hard floor of my bedroom make-out with my face once I tumbled over.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Hojo's Point of View -**

When Kagome just told me seemed like a barrier behind what she really felt. I mean, why would she still say such things about him if she didn't care about the guy anymore? I bet he loves her too...

A worried little, "Hmmm" emitted out of me.

Alas, unrequited love...

_/She Loves Me_

_Not/_

"L-Listen, Hojo," Kagome used the support of her desk to lift off the floor. "Inuyasha is just a friend to me."

"Oh?" My hopes rose.

"He's in the past," she explained with a heavy heart, or so it seemed while she furiously jotted down my notes. "And I'm in the present, so it won't ever work. My life belongs here. Inuyasha and his first girlfriend live in the same place, however. There are too many borders and fences on me and Inuyasha's relationship for us to ever be together. So all I can do is be by his side and help him on his journey. When that's over, everything will be back to normal for me and we'll probably never see each other again. So I won't get attached. I'll have to help it."

"Ohh, so it's a long DISTANCE type of thing," I concluded, pretty sure that was the case.

"U-Uh...you could say that, yeah." Kagome rotated around to look at me, this cute but heart-breaking glow glittering against her brunette eyes. "...Thing is, Hojo...I finally figured out that I need to stop letting what's best for me slip away." She was smiling directly AT me. "After all, Inuyasha doesn't love me...so I can keep my heart open for others."

What she was saying was...

O-Or what I hoped...

"Ka...gome." My eyes bulged with bustling sensations.

_/She Loves Me/_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Akitoki's Point of View -**

It really was true, then.

They were in love.

I saw it in the half-demon's stare.

The way he looked, the way he moved, the way he talked, the way he breathed...

I saw the unconditional care and concern in Inuyasha's eyes when Kagome was only three feet away from him. He never wanted her out of his sight. As much as he complained about having to protect her all the time, he seemed to...WANT to, LOVE to, like he just wouldn't get that adrenaline of purpose pumping if she was saved by someone else or simply herself.

"There's no room for me in Kagome's heart, is there?" I thought out loud, once again absent of Inuyasha's presence.

/_She Loves Me Not/_

"Listen up, Idiot..."

I tugged my head up at him, surprised to hear the tranquility in his tone of voice, like he were really thinking about it.

Inuyasha's amber eyes had gone all glassy and selfless, "A lot of cheeky bastards are in love with Kagome...too many, and there's no real say on who she really has her heart for. Kagome only said what she did to me because it was a desperate situation."

"R...Really?" Happiness was chorusing in my voice, but I quickly waned when I saw him snap a glare my way. "I-I mean right..."

"Kagome's.." Inuyasha seemed to be struggling. He closed his eyes, his eyebrow flexing in twitches. "She's got a big heart and it's hard to believe a little girl like THAT has such a huge temper. But other than that, she's...kind when she WANTS to be," he also seemed to groan this out, like he was trying to herd his pride, but then went soft on his last words, "and when she doesn't have to be. She's been the third woman in my life to truly embrace me just as I am - a half demon, nothing more and nothing less. She might be the second, I'm not sure yet...All I know is that she's got a bouquet of guys to choose from."

0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Inuyasha's Point of View -**

Yeah...

That all sounded about right.

I wasn't ready to tell Kagome the truth about what it all boiled down to. If I did, it would get in the way of our quest to complete the Shikon Jewel and stop Naraku.

I'm not ready.

I'm just not ready.

It's not the right time.

When all my goals and priorities are finished, then I'll...I'll think about it. I'm not good with words. Never have been. So it'll be hard.

Until then, just wait for it Kagome. Just wait for the ending of this little 'feudal fairytale'. Wait for the results.

/_I complicated our lives_

_Now I'm losing my only friend/_

"You know, Inuyasha," Akitoki's unexpected reply after a whole minute won over my interest.

My ears flickered her and there with my head in his direction. He sounded nerved, which was too uncanny for his type.

"I didn't come back here just to travel with you and the others."

I hunched some on my knuckles, face screwed up all skeptical and whatnot. I talked outta the side of my mouth to him, "What're you gettin' at, Akitoki?"

Akitoki lifted a phony smile to the sea of stars that eavesdropped on our conversation. Keh, nosy stars. "Tell me, Inuyasha...are you in love with Miss Kagome?"

"...E-EXCUSE ME?!" My face, argh, ONCE AGAIN, was attacked by the blood that rushed up to my face. "Wh-What kind of question is THAT?!"

"You protect her with your life," He kept looking up at those damn stars. "You get jealous whenever another man is too close to her, you embrace her close when she's sad or hurt, and you blush whenever you two get too close. I see the look in your eye when you watch over you, you know. I know that look, because I do it too."

_/She Loves Me_

_She Loves Me Not/_

I was growling through embarrassment by now. Damn, what is with all these people reading me like a book? Sure, okay, I ADMIT! I do SOME of those things, but it ain't nothing to get all mushy over!

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Kagome's Point of View -**

I was taking the biggest leap of my life right now.

"What are you saying, Kagome? That you finally wanna..." Hojo looked happy and troubled at the same time.

_/He Loves Me/_

"Mm-hm," I nodded, almost dolefully. "It's about time I took a chance."

I didn't know how my heart would adjust to this, but it'll maybe get my life back on track and pinch less stress off Inuyasha. He probably felt weird around me now that I had admitted my love to him, after all. That's kinda hard to say though, going off how he hasn't changed his emotions at all after it all happened. He's still the same, and doesn't act anymore different than he always did. But that didn't take away from the fact that he was still chasing after Kikyo. I had no room in Inuyasha's heart. Finally, I have to stop myself.

Hojo smiled, walking over to me...

_/I started crossing the line_

_Because you were never there_

_Now I have to choose/_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Hojo's Point of View -**

I kneeled down in front of Kagome, feeling that air bag of hassle deflate off my chest. My smile was getting bigger and bigger. I just knew it, because my cheeks were hurting and pink.

_/She Loves Me/_

I feel the same way too, Kagome." I assured her with everything I had. I've always wanted her to feel comfortable around me, and this is the first time she's ever smiled at me like this before.

_/She Loves Me/_

But...something didn't seem perfectly right.

No matter. Kagome said she'd take a chance and that's all I needed to hear. Nothing else but that. For right now, of course.

A wave of extraterrestrial emotion plugged in every corner of my body as I gazed into the unblinking eyes of Kagome. I never dreamt I'd see this side of her, this face of her...

_/She Loves Me/_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Inuyasha's Point of View -**

"Look, _Aki-to-ki,_" I sneered at him, even more pissed off that he wasn't looking nowhere at me! "I've got demon blood running through my veins and unlike you weak HUMANS I don't fall victim to petty feelings like that!" I frowned unblinkingly into the side of his face, trying to make him look at me.

Look at me...

Look at me, damn it!

I didn't say, 'Look, Akitoki' just for sentence-practice!

"HEY! I'm talkin' to you, here!"

"I can hear you just fine, Inuyasha." His carefree attitude was really tickin' me more than the ticks were. "But if that's true, then you wouldn't be born."

"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?"

"One of your parents was a demon and the other was a human. So obviously, the demon parent fell victim to love."

Crap, I hadn't thought of it like that...

So does that mean even if I'm a full fledged demon, these feelings will still remain?

"So you're both in love, then." Akitoki dusted his knees off as he heaved up onto his sandals. "I see..."

"Hey, just where do you think you're goin'? This conversation isn't over--"

"You're really hurting her that way, you know." He said out of the blue like he was ignoring my threat.

I blinked once or twice weakly, not bothering to ask him to identify what all that meant.

_/Nowhere to turn/_

"When you're denying how you feel about her...or when you go off to see Lady Kikyo. Your friends told me all about it."

"Kikyo?" Those nosy idiots didn't know when to draw the line. I braced my first as anger devoured me. "Th...Those gossiping traitors!"

"Whatever the case, Kagome's the living. If Lady Kikyo was a true lover, she would ask you to live your life for the benefit of your own happiness, not to die with her. That's not love. Kagome was given to you so you could have another chance. Someone up there is watching over you, so don't ignore it." Akitoki smiled, and I wanted nothing more than to just trip his lips right off his face.

In a blind motion, I thrashd out and pulled him into me by the collar of his kimono. "Listen you," I threatened menacingly with my fangs. "Don't you ever talk about Kikyo like you know exactly what goes on between me, her and Kagome! Don't act like you're in my head OR my heart! You don't know my LIFE and what I have to deal with!" I shoved him forward, making him fall flat on his scrawny butt. "Only 'I' know how I feel and I'll live my life the way I WANT to!"

_/It's almost like I don't even_

_Know myself/_

...I'm only going to agree this once...

Just this once...

But Akitoki was...

/_Now I have to choose_

_I don't know what to do/_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Akitoki's Point of View - **

I should've expected this from his violent behavior, I really should've.

So God, tell me why it didn't stop me?

_/It's almost like I don't even know myself_

_I don't know what to do/_

For the first time, I argued against Inuyasha, "How could you say that? Don't you care about Kagome at ALL? Or is she just someone you put beside you to take Kikyo's place?"

A hard, face-tearing impact met with my jaw, sending a nasty crackle to pop through the dense air.

I didn't know what the feeling was, but I couldn't get up. The pain was shooting up and down my body, preventing me from moving a muscle.

_/Nowhere to turn_

_No one to help/_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Kagome's Point of View - **

His face was moving closer and closer.

I could now see the freckles across the bridge of his nose.

...What was Hojo doing?

No, what a stupid question. I knew what he was doing. I knew exactly what he was doing, because Inuyasha had done it awhile back. I...Oh, I remember.

_/He Loves Me/_

**(Flashback)**

_"I get it, this is all about me looking like Kikyo, isn't it?! That's it! That's why you can't look at me!" Kagome shouted with a voice full of indignation at Inuyasha's sulking attitude towards her. She tightened her hold on his sidelock of silver hairs, feeling more degraded than she ever had by him._

_Inuyasha's sharp iris darted to the corner of his eye to stare at her._

_Before Kagome's mind was able to comprehend what happened, his firm clawed-hand caught hers._

_She gasped as he removed it from his forelock. "Inuyasha...!"_

_He twisted his body to her, pinning her eyes down in his weak frown. "It's not," his handsome accent alleviated from an expected shout._

_Kagome could only stare in budding bewilderment as he edged her hand away from her face. She innocently looked up at him with her big eyes, a little 'huh?' peeping out of her._

_"It's not like that," Inuyasha whispered huskily, his face drawing nearer and nearer to her own like a magnet. His half-lidded amber eyes were glossy with torturous emotions no one could ever depict._

_A trembling light of anxiety raked through Kagome's eyes as she watched in a scared astonishment. 'Wh...What's he doing?'_

_He was going to kiss her...!_

**(End of Flashback)**

I should've let him, too...

Even if he were only visualizing Kikyo.

_/He Loves Me_

_Not/_

But now as I look up from my musing, I can only see Hojo's face bending down into mine, not Inuyasha's. I didn't lean away. Instead, I convinced myself it was time to let my crush on Inuyasha go and obliged when Hojo's lips potted over mine...

_/He Loves Me_

_He Loves Me/_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Akitoki's Point of View - **

I could faintly hear Inuyasha's inhuman snarl, "I would DIE for Kagome, so don't you EVER mock me!" His tone was grueling and bone-clattering, but my feelings for Kagome hurt much more than any of this did.

When I finally reeled over onto my side to feel my face, I felt the thick, hot temperature of blood stain my finger tips. He had punched me. I, like a fool, struggled onto my elbows, my body shaking like a seizure. "I-I won't stand for that...I-I won't." I wheezed, heavy with pain. "Kagome doesn't deserve it! Y-You can't die for two women, I...Inu...yasha! You must choose!"

In that instant, I knew I was a goner...

_/I started crossing the line_

_Because I didn't care/_

But the stars must've been happy with my bravery tonight, I guess.

"Inuyasha, DON'T!" I heard Miroku demand and then the shuffling noise behind me like he was trying to restrain Inuyasha.

Sango and Shippou came ot my adi and helpled me to my feet. I got a good look at the half-demon who wanted to kill me. He looked ready for massacre. But he didn't look like a DEMON. He looked like a brokenhearted human behind who didn't know what else to do.

"How DARE you say that about Kagome, you pathetic BASTARD! You don't know what's BEST for HEEEER!" Inuyasha fought against Miroku's hold. "LET ME GO, MIROKU! O-Or else I'll have to kill you too..." Maybe I had imagined it, but...I could've sworn to see the white of his eyes momentarily flare red in sync with the blackened demonic tone darkening over his voice.

_/I complicated our lives_

_By falling in love/_

Don't give into it, Inuyasha!" Miroku suddenly whacked him in the skull with his staff, causing the half-demon to topple over. "Now's your chance, Akitoki! Go!"

At first, I hesitated, only taking a mere step back. But as I heard Shippou and Sango's shouts overtone my thougts, I broke for the hills.

I'd never forget this night - never.

For it was the first night I'd ever seen a half-demon become so tormented by his own heart for two women. I could very well say that Inuyasha looked as if he coould cry from his pain.

Now I undestand why Kagome loved him. It wasn't because of his strength and bravery or anything like that. It was because of his damaged soul.

_/She Loves Me_

_Not/_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**- Hojo's Point of View - **

Time had flown by since that special first kiss. What was once eight o'clock is now nine thirty. We didn't do anything besides that innocent kiss other than study right after, as if it were something natural that happened between us.

"So, I'll see you tomorrow at school." Kagome wished her dearest farewell to me as I stood outside her door.

_/She Loves Me/_

"If you don't get sick again," I joked, hoping that would be more of a joke than a jinx.

"Right, right." She continued to smile, her eyes closed upwards.

"Well...then I'll be off then." Actually, I just stood there...

"Uhh...o...kay..."

...Deciding whether or not I should--

I pecked Kagome's cheek with my lips, missing hers on purpose. I think our first kiss was often for the time being. I didn't want to overwhelm her. As I leaned back from her flushed face, I waved her a, "So long," and hurried down the pathway.

...I hope Kagome isn't lying about her feelings for me. It'll be worst than rejection. And I just want her to be happy, but I have my own feeling that she hasn't realized that yet.

_/I complicated our lives_

_By falling in love/_

0o0o0o0o0

**- Kagome's Point of View - **

Yeah, definitely a big leap. Almost too big.

But I'd just have to get over that part. The bigger part is what lies aheead for me and Inuyasha.

As I retreated back to the house, the kiss replayed in the back of my mind's film. I had always called my memories a collected series of home-made movies in my head and a lot of them were reruns of Inuyasha. Now they were starring Hojo.

_/He Loves Me_

_He Loves Me Not/_

After we had our kissy-kissy moment, we tried to go back to my studies like it was something natural between us. But it wasn't. Not for me, at least. I guess he didn't realize I was putting up a facade at the time, because with my back to him, my face was flaming hot.

The kiss with Hojo was...okay, but..

_/I don't know why_

_I had to try_

_Living my life on the other side_

_Now I'm so confused_

_I have to choose/_

"Sis?" My kid-brother's interruption knocked me out of my own head.

"Huh?" I blinked down on him as he embraced our fat little Buyo to him. "What...is it, Sota? Something wrong?"

"Are you going out with Hojo now?" Sota croaked.

"Well..." I sweat dropped, twiddling my thumbs on my stomach.

"...So then did you break up with Inuyasha?" He assumed and it totally caught me off guard.

My kid-brother may have been a hopeless case, but he wasn't stupid.

"I...I think I'm gonna go get a snack before bed. 'Night!" I nervously waved off the conversation and speed-walked into the kitchen.

My heart hurt that I couldn't even answer those simple questions!

Urgh, I'm so stupid...

Where's the wall to bang my head into?

_/Nowhere to turn_

_No one to help_

_It's almost like I don't even know myself_

_I complicated our lives by falling in love with him/_

0o0o0oo0ooooo0oo0o0

**-** **Inuyasha's Point of View - **

...I stared down into the well that led to Kagome's era.

My eyes slanted as I stared into my hands, which I found myself doing a lot lately. The little patterning lines didn't seem like a wicked thing such as murder would ever be lying dormat beneath the skin.

I was so closed to exploding on that damn Akitoki in my demon form. And to transform without Kagome around is the worst time. I know that bastard had said too much, but never in my dreams would I even consider coming after him in my demon form. The last thing I want is to destroy the trust everyone else has for me even more and kill an innocent, puny human like Akitoki.

_/I started crossing the line_

_Because you were never there_

_No where to turn_

_No one to help_

_It's almost like I don't even know myself/_

Miroku and the others had a fuzzy little 'talk' with me after that blabbermouth Akitoki ran for the hills. They kept explaining to me that a lot of idiots liked Kagome but I shoved it off like I didn't care. So what? That wasn't the reason I blew off on Akitoki! He had his nose were it shouldn't have been!

But...some things Miroku said had my ears twitching:

_"Inuyasha, if you continued to ignore Kagome's feelings and your own, you'll lose her sooner than you would have wished._"

_/She Loves Me/_

Just on impulse I blurted out a stupid, _"Don't yoiu think I KNOW that already?!"_

Everyone but Miroku had flinched at that remark, but the lecherous Monk kept going:

_"I'm not talking about Naraku and the other dangers that lie ahead. I'm talking about those other men. You'll lose her to them if yu don't change that indifferent attitude towards her. You may be able to keep an eye out on the admirers in this world, but think about her world also, the place you can't be on a daily basis. And did you ever think about what could happen between you and her after you get the jewel? Could you see a life without Kagome or a life with her?"_

After he said all that, I totally twisted the subject around and argued how none of them had any business telling Akitoki about Kikyo. Leaving them guilty, I ran...

It really...struck me. Hard. I mean, I had always thought after I found the jewel things would always remain the way they were. I always avoided questions like that, never going as far as to answering them, but Miroku was now shoving the future in my face this time.

A life...without Kagome?

I had closed my eyes and tried to put that thought into my head and bring it to life.

But once I reopened my eyes, I never thought my heart could pound so hard...

I couldn't picture it! It's almost as if it were too impossible to my mind to even imagine! I was so naive into believing the opposite of that possibility for so long, it's blinded my sense of thought completely.

A life without...Kagome.

I'd be kinda...empty, wouldn't I?

Empty like before. I can't go back to that old way of living. I'm too comfortable in this new life, that it'll be more painful than usual to even look back at the past.

Kagome, you just don't realize how much you've changed me, do you?

You're the only person who saw past my rough exterior when I tried so hard to keep you at a distance...

_/She Loves Me_

_Not/_

But here I am. On the other side of the well - Kagome's world. Huh, I guess instant reflex caused me to jump in the moment I started thinking about the wench.

"Hmph, migth as well see what the Wench is up to now." I huffed out before jogging to her bedroom window and prowling into it, only to find...

"Oh, hey Inuyasha. Funny seeing you here." It was Kagome's kid-brother, Sota.

"Uh, hey..." I frowned, a little displeased over the fact that he wasn't Kagome. "Where's Kagome?"

But Sota answered my question with a question, "Did something happen between you and Kagome?"

I flinched back at the comment, sensing just how intensely troubled the kid was. What the heck was his problem?

"What are you TALKING about?" I asked briskly.

"So then, you two didn't break up?"

My cheeks were on fire, but instead of answering, I just screeched out, "Where's all this COMING from?! What're you asking ME for?!"

"Inu...yasha?" Sota bowed his head, his bangs shadowing his eyes.

I grunted in a slight growl of impatience. He was taking too long. "Out with it!"

"H-Hojo. I think...Sis chose Hojo over you. I don't think she loves you anymore, Inuyasha..."

_/I complicated our lives_

_Now I'm losing my only friend/_


End file.
